Chess tournaments in Marbella and Malaga

13 January 2013

Evidently, one chess tournament each weekend just wasn’t enough for my wife, who signed us up for two — on the same day! — this past Saturday.

Kids Circuit in Marbella

The regional kids circuit had its scheduled stop in Marbella on Saturday morning, at the Plaza de Mar commercial center, just next to the beautiful beach paseo.

Organized by Jesus Roman (yes, “Jesus” is a common name in Spain) and supported by the Malaga Chess Federation, more than 50 kids participated. In parallel, Jesus also ran an adults tournament, so that the “padres” and other local adult enthusiasts would have something do.

Our kids did well. After the six-round tournament, our daughter finished first in the girls category, an our son won his category and finished third overall.

Scroll down to the bottom of the article for lots of great photos of the event.

Promotion Tournament in Malaga

In Andalucia, there’s two categories of chess players — “Preferential” and everybody else. Only preferential players are allowed to compete in certain tournaments, like the Malaga Championship.

Once or twice per year, “promotion” tournaments are organized in which non-preferntials (like me) can try to earn our way into the preferential category. The tournaments include eight rounds of 120 minute games, over four consecutive weekends. You can “pass” by being in the top five in any such tournament, or by having done “well” in any two tournaments. You only have to pass once; then you’re preferential for life.

With the Marbella tournament ending around 3pm and the Promotion tournament in Malaga starting at 4:30pm, we barely had time to get there.

Upon arriving, we popped into a local restaurant for lunch. I tried to insist to my wife that the tournament — like anything else in Spain — would not start on time, but she insisted that I ingest my first plate, second plate, dessert and coffee all within a span of about six minutes. The tournament started half an hour late, with me suffering post-lunch bloat.

In my first of two games, I played the guy ranked fourth in the starting list (I was ranked somewhere in the middle). Playing the French Defense (as black), I built up a good position. Unfortunately, I waited a bit too late, and the opponent moved his bishop into a position that blocked my castling.

At move number 24, I made my typical once-per-game blunder. Having lost the opportunity to castle, I thought I was badly losing, and missed an obvious opportunity to escape check with a rook/bishop capture. Instead, I moved my king and the game went downhill from there, and I eventually ended up getting checkmated.

After the game, I entered the moves into my HIARCS iPad chess app, and it showed that at move 24, I actually had a winning factor of 3.5! I couldn’t believe it; at that point I was decisively winning the game! Grrrr — I’m going to chalk this one up to indigestion (and blame my wife).

For those interested, here’s an embedded version of the game:

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[Event “Promotion 2013”] [Site “Malaga”] [Date “2013.01.12”] [Round “1”] [White “David Martin Cabrerizo (White)”] [WhiteElo “1900”] [Black “Matt Henderson (Black)”] [BlackElo “1900”] [Result “1-0”]

e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. f4 Nc6 6. Nf3 Bb4 7. a3 Bxc3+ 8. bxc3 Nb6 9. Bb5 Bd7 10. Qe2 a6 11. Bd3 Na5 12. Be3 Nac4 13. O-O Ba4 14. f5 Qd7
Bg5 h6 16. Bh4 Bb5 17. Nd2 Rg8 18. fxe6 Qxe6 19. Bf5 Qc6 20. e6 f6 21. e7 Nxd2 22. Bg6+ Kd7 23. e8=Q+ Rgxe8 24. Bxe8+ Kd8 25. Qxd2 Qxe8 26. Rfe1 Qf7 27. Bg3 Kd7 28. Qf4 Kc6 29. Re6+ Kd7 30. Qxc7+ Kxe6 31. Re1+ Kf5 32. Qxf7 g5 33. Rf1+ Kg4 34. Qe6+ Kh5 35. Rxf6 1-0

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I did better in my second game, winning by checkmate as white:

[pgn layout=horizontal display=700 height=auto autoplayMode=none]

[Event “Promocion 2013”] [Site “Malaga”] [Date “2013.01.12”] [Round “2”] [White “Matt Henderson (White)”] [WhiteElo “1900”] [Black “Salvador Ortiz Valero (Black)”] [BlackElo “1900”] [Result “1-0”]

e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Qf6 4. Nc3 Nge7 5. Bxc6 Nxc6 6. Nd5 Qd6 7. d3 Be7 8. O-O O-O 9. Be3 Nb4 10. Nxe7+ Qxe7 11. a3 Nc6 12. Qe2 Re8 13. Ng5 Qf6 14. Qh5 h6
Nh3 d6 16. f4 Bd7 17. fxe5 Qe7 18. exd6 cxd6 19. Rf2 Ne5 20. Qe2 Bg4 21. Qf1 Rac8 22. Rc1 b6 23. Bd4 f6 24. Nf4 Qf7 25. h3 Be6 26. Bxe5 dxe5 27. Ne2 Qg6
Kh2 Rf8 29. Ng3 b5 30. Qe2 a6 31. b4 Bd7 32. c4 Rc7 33. c5 Be8 34. Qe3 Rff7
Rfc2 Rfe7 36. c6 Re6 37. Qb6 Qf7 38. Qxa6 Rcxc6 39. Rxc6 Bxc6 40. Rxc6 Rxc6
Qxc6 Qb3 42. Qxb5 Qxa3 43. Nf5 Kh7 44. Qb7 Qxd3 45. Qxg7# 1-0

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I ended the day with one out of two possible points. So we’ll be returning each Saturday for the next three weekends, to continue the event.