Tactics Time Chess Newsletter: Clone Question Bro

Published: Sun, 05/24/15

Newsletter Issue Clone Question Bro

Tactics Time

Clone Question Bro

Not victory , Obi- Wan. The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen. Begun, this Clone War has. ~ Yoda


T

his position comes from the game Chris Peterson vs Mark Krowczyk, Round 2, Attack of the Clones, May 16, 2015.

In the position on the right it is White to move.

Answer below.

I got some great questions about the recent Clones tournament held by the Denver Chess Club.

Kevin writes:

Hi Tim, thanks for the newsletters.

I have a couple of questions about the 'Attack of the Clones' tournament as I am considering trying something similar at my local club as an end of season celebration.

Firstly, with so many people moving about from board to board, did it not become a health & safety issue, especially in time trouble with players running about, or were there rules in place such as 'no running'?

Also, was there any problems with players forgetting where their boards were?

Finally, what do you think is the shortest time limit this tournament could handle?

I'd appreciate your thoughts.

Cheers,
Kev. (Nottingham, England)

My response:

Hey Kevin,

Thanks!

Yeah, the logistics actually worked out much better than I thought they would.

We didn't have a traditional thing where players were forced to play on specific boards (like you have to play on boards #4, #10 and #16 for example), like you would see at a normal tournament.

Players were allowed to organize the boards themselves with what made the most sense.

The other key was that not all of the players were playing with clones. In both rounds 2 and 3, only one of my opponent's was playing with clones. I think if every single person had a maximum number of clones, it would have been much more challenging.

In both round 2 and 3, I was able to line up all three of my boards together. Then my opponent who had clones, could line his opponents next to mine.

It looked like this:

So (round 3) here I was playing with two clones (3 boards). Mark had one clone (2 boards), Devon had one clone (2 boards), and the others had no clones (one board).

A couple times this was not possible to do something this nice, but for the most part it worked out. I didn't see anyone who had to run from one side of the room to the other.

The tables were light weight and easy to move around, and the room was spacious to allow for things to be moved around easily.

The time control was g60 +30, which I think worked well. I think they tried to squeeze too many rounds into one day though (four). They made some special rules regarding keeping score, but I am not sure these were necessary, with a 30 second increment.

It was A LOT of fun!

Hope that helps,

Cheers,

Tim

Here is the complete game:

[Event "Attack of the Clones"]
[Site "MiCasa Resourse Center"]
[Date "2015.05.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Peterson, Chris"]
[Black "Krowczyk, Mark"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A80"]
[WhiteElo "2150"]
[BlackElo "1913"]
[PlyCount "35"]

1. d4 f5 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bf4 Nf6 4. e3 d6 5. Bc4 Be7 6. h3 O-O 7. Nbd2 Ne4 8. Qe2
g5 9. Bh2 g4 10. Ng1 d5 11. Bb3 Kh8 12. Nxe4 dxe4 13. hxg4 Bd6 14. O-O-O fxg4
15. Bxd6 cxd6 16. Qxg4 d5 17. Nf3 exf3 18. Rxh7+ 0-1

You can play through this game here: http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2015/5/22/Game1010810896.html

Answer:

Chris cleared the way for this rook sac on the previous move with 17.Nf3! leaving the knight to be taken, which it was.

Fritz 13 gave 18. Rxh7+!! a double exclam. It's a forced mate after 18...Kxh7 19.Rh1+ Qh4 20.Rxh4#

Happy Tactics!

Your Friend,