Local International Master Jack Rudd, known as the fastest pawn in the West, visited us recently to give a simul.nbsp; In characteristically quick time he defeated all challengers with a score
of 13-0, leaving most wondering what had hit them and a few mournfully looking for crumbs of
comfort in a post mortem dissection.
Jack gave us a demonstration of how many different ways to win a chess game:
being alert to tactics (Simon, Sean),
positional grinds (Tim),
lordly attacks (Sean)
or simply taking advantage of elementary mistakes (Brian, Richard) with a bit of
endgame technique (Richard, Tim).
Both Simon and Tim probably had a draw in hand with more accurate play Looking a little deeper at the games you can see how he often took his chances (Simon, Sean) while we let some go (Jonathan). Jack was also content to pick up small advantages as he went along (Tim) without searching always for the very sharpest move. Interestingly, he used a greater range of opening moves than I’ve seen used in a simul.; Fischer and Spassky would open 1.e4 on every board!
Here are some of the games with notes by DrDave and Fritz.nbsp; Fritz is typically cryptic in some of its suggestions and assessments, so I haven’t tried to interpret them all. They’re all worth a look, if only to decide for yourself why they’re wrong!
Click on […] to see games list.
At a more general level, I think I’d say that we made Jack’s life
easier by often playing too passively
in the opening (Simon, Brian, Sean,
Jonathan, John…).Where we stood our ground and played
for some concrete goals (Richard, Tim and very nearly Dan) I was more
optimistic.