This is the
story of Govind Mohan Lal, affectionately known as
'GM'in the Chess
Circuit!
He had a bad day in the office and he was
livid with himself. He had drawn his crucial 6th round game against
his old foe that had pushed him into the joint 2nd spot with a score
of 5 points. Had he won that game, he would have propelled himself into the top
of the table. And, with 3-rounds remaining, would have been favourite to win
this championship.
Read the full story with very interesting
analyzed chess games.
How could he draw such a game, which was
nothing but a total home preparation from the white-side of the Scotch Opening?
After 15 moves he had his opponent on his toe and, the writing was all over the
wall. With the country in the grip of IPL fever and the newspaper just
forgetting about the existence of other sports, he could still imagine himself
making the headlines next day, probably on the same page as with the RR team!
Alas! One moment of indiscretion and, his
dreams were falling apart. Moreover, he was furious that he was forced to share
the 2nd spot jointly with his opponent in the last round, his long
time Chess friend but enemy within!
He could not fathom the thought of his
opponent playing Chess!! - a mere mortal that was created by God just to punish
him for some of his misdeeds in his last birth!! So, whenever the opportunity
presented him with a chance to play against his opponent, either in tournament
or off-hand games, he played with full vigour of a gladiator!!
To a certain extent he had been successful
with a score of +2 but the last 3 games prior to the current clash were a near
disaster. He had no answer to his strong Berlin Defense and, he sometimes felt
that he was playing against Kramnik! With Black, he had tried KID and was almost
successful but somehow, he felt that his opponent had learned enough of Black
magic to prevent him from winning! He was not superstitious but, playing against
this opponent made him search for some Black magic ‘Limbu’, which he (his
opponent) might have stashed in some remote corner of the tournament hall!!
As such, when he learnt the critical 6th
round pairing, he decided to change his repertoire from Ruy Lopez to a surprise
Scotch, which he had never played before and, which his opponent would have
never expected him to play!
With the help of his monsters, Fritz and Chessbase, he went through the recent advances in this variation but some inner
intuition signaled him that he should adopt some obscure line - a line which was
beyond the chess understanding of his opponent and, as such, he decided for
Scotch Four Knight’s variation.
He reached the tournament hall quite early and
found the peaceful serenity of the place to calm down his jumping nerves. He
decided to set his own clock as he wanted to prevent his opponent from
performing any tricks on him!
His opponent, with an aura of confidence,
arrived just before the scheduled time and they both shook hands. The games
started and, to show a positive body language he nearly fixed the pawn on the e4
square and pressed his clock with a slightly more pressure! He was now praying
that his opponent would play e5 and, after a few seconds pause, which appeared
an eternity, his opponent obliged! And, after the usual
2.Nf3 Nc6
he
played 3.d4!
and watched with
satisfaction the surprise on his opponent’s face, who was expecting
3.Bb5
The game continued as per
his exact home preparation: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Bb4
6.Nxc6 bxc6 7.Bd3 d5 8.e5?! Ng4 9.Bf4 d4
10.Qf3!
