Blast from the Past: Mansson – Green, BPCF Open Championship Semi-Final Round

Posted on May 9, 2017 by James Mansson

The next game I am going to look at is my other King’s Indian from the section, played against G.Green. I was White again and the game followed the same line as my game against M.Ali up to Black’s 12th move. While my 13th move in the other game was innocuous, my 13th move in this game was decidedly dubious. Soon afterwards, I made a definite mistake, which allowed my opponent to play a very strong sacrifice. Admittedly, he did not find the strongest continuation at one point, which would have led to a forced win. However, he maintained a clear advantage and I was unable to defend. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Mansson – Ali, BPCF Open Championship Semi-Final Round

Posted on May 8, 2017 by James Mansson

It was interesting to go back and have a serious look at my game against M.Ali from my first BPCF Open Semi-Final. My memory of it was rather negative, but actually looking at it again, things do not seem quite so clear-cut until late on. Having said that, I did make some questionable decisions at several points. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: First BPCF Open Semi-Final Round Section

Posted on May 8, 2017 by James Mansson

As a result of my success in my first Preliminary Round section in the BPCF Open, I qualified for a Semi-Final section, which eventually started in the following year. Here I faced much tougher opposition and my result indicated that I had to improve considerably to be able to progress further in the competition. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Scruton – Mansson, BPCF Open Championship Preliminary Round

Posted on May 6, 2017 by James Mansson

The last game from my first BPFC Open Preliminary Round section that I’d like to look at is my Black win against R.Scruton. This was a rather gritty struggle in which neither side’s play was especially distinguished; I eventually prevailed in the endgame. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Lucas – Mansson, BPCF Open Championship Preliminary Round

Posted on May 4, 2017 by James Mansson

My Black game against K.Lucas was marred by my opponents blunder of a piece on move 15, after which the result was never in doubt. At the point he blundered, Black was attempting to build an attack on the kingside, but it was not clear that he would make further progress. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Mansson – Fletcher, BPCF Open Championship Preliminary Round

Posted on May 3, 2017 by James Mansson

My other White game in the section was against Fletcher. The was a more successful effort than my game against N.Fallowfield. My opponent followed a line where Petrosian had achieved a quick draw against Szabo as Black, but in fact the position was better for White; Szabo had most likely agreed to the draw because he was playing Petrosian. Black’s position was rather passive; I was able to gradually build up pressure before breaking through. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Mansson – Fallowfield, BPCF Open Championship Preliminary Round

Posted on May 2, 2017 by James Mansson

While the first game I examined was a little dull, the one I am about to look at was anything but. It has to be said that my encounter against N.Fallowfield was not correspondence chess at its finest; it was more like an entertaining “over the board” game where both sides made mistakes and the encounter was decided by blunders in time trouble. Admittedly, the positions that arose were rather complex and difficult to analyse; also, in those days, there was not the possibility of consulting a computer, so both players analytical skills were definitely stretched! Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Mansson – Copley, BPCF Open Championship Preliminary Round

Posted on May 1, 2017 by James Mansson

The first game I want to look at is my game with J.Copley. My opinion of it at the time was that it was a dull draw, with the most memorable aspect being that we used one of those elaborate correspondence chess score cards to send the game backwards and forwards. However, having looked at it again with a computer, I discovered that there was an interesting tactical possibility that would have allowed my opponent to gain a slight advantage in the endgame. I am not sure that it would have ultimately changed the result, but it would certainly have justified playing on. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: First BPCF Open Preliminary Round Section

Posted on May 1, 2017 by James Mansson

Each section of the BPCF Open had its own code, consisting of a letter indicating the round (P = Preliminary, S = Semi-Final, F = Final) and an ordinal to indicate which edition of that round was being played. I don’t know the exact code for the first section I played in; there had I think by that point been at least 300 preliminary round sections, so it would have been something like P300. Continue reading →

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Blast from the Past: Correspondence Chess

Posted on May 1, 2017 by James Mansson

As I am unlikely to have many more games to annotate this season, I thought it would be interesting to do some more “Blast from the Past” posts, where I go over some of my old games. For this series I thought that I would revisit the correspondence chess games I have played over the years. Continue reading →

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