View From Down Under

by Chris Depasquale
Best Second; Second Best
Those of you who read my December column would be aware that
the Australian championship was held in the period 28 December
to 9 January. In case you failed to catch up with it, you can find it
in the archives: I'll wait here while you do that.
[Tum-tum te-dah, tum-tum te-dah]
OK. Now, in my December column, I might have given the
impression that the most difficult thing about the Australian
championship was actually finding it. It seems that many players
did come to that conclusion: rather than the usual 32-36-player
Swiss we had just sixteen entries in the tournament for an 11round Swiss event.
Law
During the first couple of rounds I came across well-known
Sydney solicitor and FIDE Master Tim Reilly at the tournament
(although, and let me be clear on this, at the time I spoke to him he
was neither playing chess nor soliciting). He was actually one of
the 16-strong field for those first couple of rounds, courtesy of GM
Darryl Johansen providing transport up from Sydney each day.
Before round three, however, Johansen decided to sleep on a park
bench just up the road from the tournament venue.
This shouldn't have been a problem for Reilly except that, in his
formative years, he ignored the usual childish literature, focusing
instead on titles like Dunkelblum vs Commonwealth of Australia:
The Implications for Constitutional Law. As a result, he neglected
to leave the traditional trail of bread-crumbs, and failed to locate
the tournament venue at all during the last nine rounds, leaving just
fifteen players to complete the event. But I digress.
Accountancy
The hardest thing about such a tournament is, of course, to win it.
About two months before the event I undertook a quick stock-take
of the assets I had which would help me to achieve this. It took
about 30 seconds, including the time required to find pen and
paper (about twenty-nine and a half seconds; a good memory
didn't make the list). Then, like a good accountant, I determined to
fill out the other side of the ledger: my liabilities. "That shouldn't
take long," I thought, "after all, I have already found the pen and
paper."
About a month later I abandoned the project: nobody, but nobody,
has THAT much paper.
I did, however, reach some form of what the accountants call "the
bottom line". I concluded that, in order to have a chance of success
in the event, I needed to seriously improve the following personal
traits:
Skill
Ability

Fighting spirit
Understanding
Knowledge
Memory
Creativeness
Intelligence
Concentration
Stamina
and
Memory (I had forgotten that I had already
included this on the list)
And only a month to achieve all this! Naturally, I was prepared to
take advice from anybody as to how this might be achieved. My
wife suggested a sex-change operation, but I think she was just
being facetious. Others suggested all manner of things, from Feng
Shui to selling my soul to the devil. I kind of liked this final
suggestion, but it transpires (and Tim Reilly was able to confirm
this) that there is a law against selling something already
mortgaged, and Caissa was not interested in waiving the mortgage.
Eventually I even took advice from chess players, and one of them
came up with a brainstorm: why not employ a second? That's what
all the professionals do, and it seems to work for them. So I
immediately set about making a list of the aspects of my game the
second would need to be able to improve. All I could come up with
was: openings; middlegames; endgames; tactics; strategy;
planning; transition from opening to middlegame; transition from
middlegame to endgame; open games; closed games; semi-open
games; semi-closed games; converting good positions; fighting
back from difficult positions; and maneuvering in equal positions.
Diligent readers may wonder what, in particular, may be missing
from the list. Well, one aspect of my game which needed no
improvement whatsoever was the post mortem. Immediately after
each and every resignation I can demonstrate to my opponent
exactly how I should have won the game, and exactly what I would
have done but for the mystery ailment that prevented me from
concentrating at the time. But I digress.
The Offer
So I prepared my email to Gary Kasparov, telling him how much I
admired his play, and offering him enormous quantities of money
to be my second at Tumbi Umbi. Naturally I got an affirmative
reply, but, upon reading the reply, I realized that I had made my
first blunder of the tournament. Instead of selecting Garry
Kasparov from my email list, I had inadvertently selected Gary
Lane!! That third bottle of wine at dinner that night had a lot to
answer for.Naturally I tried to clear up the misunderstanding, but
Gary had already booked his ticket. As Tim Reilly was able to
confirm, a contract is a contract, and, as Gary Lane had already
invested in an air ticket, a map, a compass and a goat, it was going
to be more than my American Express card could bear to
reimburse him and still fork out for Gazza, so Gary Lane became
my second for the Australian Championship at Tumbi Umbi.
Every cloud has a silver lining, however, and I started to think
about the benefits. Gary was at the cutting edge of opening theory.
If they played main line stuff, he would have some important
novelty on move 23 of the Marshall or the Scheveningen;

otherwise we could spring the Bo/Omega Gambit on them, with a

huge arsenal of opening theory to back it up.
Equipment
When Gary arrived in Tumbi Umbi I set off to his motel, eager to
see what he would be putting at my disposal. I expected to see a
room full of laptop computers, all with ChessBase, Fritz and
innumerable other technological gadgets, and a library of books to
be devoured and put to use at any given moment in the games to
come. I was in for a shock. Gary had brought just two items of
equipment with him: a videotape and a hammer. The videotape
was a GM Video production on the Pseudo-Trompovski, starring
none other than: Gary Lane. His approach was quite direct and
straight-forward. "Play this Pseudo-Trompovski opening, and
make sure you win with it or I'll have your guts for garters; a few
spectacular victories should boost sales down here considerably." I
didn't have the White pieces until round 2.
Depasquale,C (2305) - Solomon,S (2435) [D00]
AUS ch Tumbi Umbi (2), 29.12.1999
1.d4 d5 2.Bg5 This is the move which characterizes the PseudoTrompovski. 2...h6 3.Bh4 c5 4.dxc5 Nc6?! (4...Qa5+ is normal)
5.c3 g5 6.Bg3 Bg7 7.e3 Nf6 8.Nd2 Bf5 9.Ngf3 Nh5 10.Nd4 Bg6
11.Qa4 0-0 12.Nxc6 bxc6 13.Ba6 Qd7 14.Nf3 Nxg3 15.hxg3 e5
16.Rd1 f5? (See Diagram)
17.Rxd5 Qxd5 18.Bc4 Rfc8 19.0-0 a5 20.Bxd5+ cxd5 21.Qd7
Re8 22.Qxd5+ Bf7 23.Qd7 Be6 24.Qa4 Rec8 25.Rd1 Rxc5
26.Rd6 Bf7 27.Qd7 Bxa2 (See Diagram)
28.b3! Bxb3 (28...Rf8 29.Rg6 Rf7 30.Qe8+ Rf8 31.Qe7 Rf7
32.Qxc5) 29.Qb7 Rac8 30.Qxb3+ Kh8 31.Rd7 Rf8 32.Qb6 Rfc8
33.Qg6 Rg8 34.Nxg5 hxg5 35.Qh5+ 1-0
I played the Pseudo-Trompovski at every opportunity, and
managed 5/5 with the White pieces.
Around about here you are probably wondering what the hammer
is all about. Gary Lane took his duties fairly seriously (as you
would, if you were picking up Garry Kasparov's paycheck) and
had studied my games in detail. "I couldn't help noticing that since
you have been writing for The Chess Cafe you have been playing
chess like a millionaire," Gary pointed out to me, "tossing away
pawns at the drop of a cap. I will not have you ruining my
reputation with unnecessary losses: every time you even think
about giving away a pawn for no good reason, this hammer will
deal with the fingers responsible."
I must confess that this attitude worked fine until, in round ten, I
met my nemesis of recent years: Mirko Rujevic.
Rujevic,M - Depasquale,C [B32]
AUS Ch Tumbi Umbi (10), 08.01.2000
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Nb5 d6 6.N1c3 a6
7.Na3 b5 8.Nd5 Nge7 9.c4 Nd4 10.Nc2?! Nxd5 11.Nxd4?! Nf6
12.Nc2 Be7 13.f3 0-0 14.Ne3 Bb7 15.Be2 bxc4 16.Bxc4 (See
Diagram)

White has misplayed the opening, but Black, already an hour

ahead on the clock, needs to take strong action to turn this to
account. The move 16...d5, sacrificing a pawn, stands out, and
was, of course, the first move I considered. The trouble was, I was
terrified the hammer would be produced! I knew that during the
middle part of the playing session Gary would lead a train of
young ladies to the cocktail bar (as he did on each day) but, due to
my fast play in the early part of the game, he was still hanging
around at this stage. I lapsed into what, to the outsider, appeared to
be detailed calculation, watching an hour disappear off my clock,
and pausing no more than 5 or 6 times for various coffee, cigarette
and toilet breaks. Finally, Gary set off to the cocktail bar, and the
coast was clear. 16...d5! 17.Bxd5 Nxd5 18.exd5 (18.Nxd5 Bxd5
19.Qxd5 Qb6 and Black's rooks will soon enter the game with
decisive effect.) 18...Bc5 19.Qb3 Rb8 20.Qd3 Qh4+ 21.g3 Qb4+
22.Kf1 (22.Bd2 Qxb2 23.0-0 Qd4-+) 22...Rfd8 23.a3 Qd4 24.Ke2
a5 (See Diagram)
25.b4?! (25.Rd1 Rxd5! 26.Qb5 [26.Nxd5 Qf2#; 26.Qxd4 Rxd4-+]
26...Ba6! 27.Qxa6 Rxb2+ 28.Ke1 Qc3+ etc.) 25...axb4 26.axb4?
Qxa1 27.bxc5 Ba6 28.Nc4 Qa2+ 29.Ke1 Bxc4 0-1
In the end, I failed to win the event by just half a point; these being
the leading final scores:
9/11 - GM Johansen
8 - FM Depasquale, FM Zhao
6 - FM Chapman, FM Rujevic, IM Smerdon, IM Solomon, Tian,
Tindall
Naturally, I sought a refund of the substantial monetary advances I
had sent to Gary. After all, I had failed to win the tournament, and
my own post mortem of the event set the blame fairly and squarely
at Gary's feet. His view of it was that he had filled his end of the
bargain, and he produced a poll of the other players and spectators,
which concluded that I had actually scored 8 points more than
anybody had expected me to.
Naturally I sought advice from Tim Reilly, who expressed the
opinion that I should have withdrawn from the event after my
game against Solomon in round 2...
Copyright 2000 Chris Depasquale. All rights reserved.