Liechtenstein – Ireland ½-3½. In the last couple of rounds Ireland faced stronger opponents, and still managed to compete. After the loss in the last round, it was expected to get a relatively easy opponent. Nonetheless, Liechtenstein shall not be underestimated. It is a small country located between Switzerland and Austria, but after their Chess Federation joined FIDE in 1985, several highly rated tournaments were organised there. All in all, the mean Elo-point difference between the teams were +280 (83% winning chance) from the Irish point of view. The players from the Principality were hard to defeat.
On Board 3, Tom O’Gorman created a clear advantage, and he managed to increase it move by move until the end. On Board 4, David Fitzsimons had a relatively bad position, and the first two boards were very balanced for a while. So, it seemed that a draw will inevitable. When the time troubles began the landscape change dramatically. On Board 4 Mr. Fitzsimons turned the tides and won. On Board 2, a fatal mistake was committed due to lack of time, and Mr. Kanyamarala did not hesitate to use that. The final result does not reflect the enormous effort and the hard work needed to win this pairing.
Let us present first a puzzle from Kriger (2153) vs. Kanyamarala (2361). Can you find the solution?
Checkmate in 4 move
In the following game, we can learn two key lessons. One, if you are playing a less known opening then it worth to follow the principles of openings to the letter. The second lesson is material is not everything. White loses a pawn for having a better and attacking position. Black managed to delay the development of the pieces which blows back to Black’s face almost immediately. An exposed King or Queen, and a wandering piece a good recipe to lose. Tom O’Gorman in this game played with composure and with a good strategy to show us what will happen if we are focusing on all the wrong things.