IM Larry Kaufman won the 2008 Senior World Chess Championship in Bad Zwischenahn, Germany, and with it, the Grandmaster title. He finished the 11 round Swiss tournament in a tie for first with Romanian GM Mihai Suba with nine points each, but was awarded first on tie breaks. Kaufman, who earlier won the US Senior Championship, is also well known as a member of the team behind Rybka, the current world champion chess program.
Good news indeed.
And more good news for us common folk who like to play the Blackmar-Diemer: one of these old geezers (at my age, I speak with authority on geezers) played a couple of BDGs that made it into Crowther's latest issue of TWIC. Both were played by a German named Karl-Heinz Bondick, age 64, who finished with 6 points and in the top third of a field of 304 players.
Here's one of his BDGs—I'll add the second in a later post.
Bondick,K (2175) - Piastowski,K (1997)
Senior World Chess Championship,
Bad Zwischenahn, Germany (3), 30.10.2008
BDG, Teichmann Defense [D00]
1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.f3 exf3 5.Nxf3 Bg4 6.h3 Bh5 7.g4 Bg6 8.Ne5 Nbd7 9.Qe2
9.Qf3 is usually seen here. When I first played through this game Qe2 seemed new to me. I was surprised to find I'd actually published several games with it years ago in BDG World (watch for my next post).
9...c6 10.h4
10...h6?
Not good. Better tries would be 10...Nb6!? 11.h5 Bxc2 12.Qxc2 Qxd4 13.Qf5!?; or 10...Qa5 11.h5 Be4 12.Nc4 Qb4 13.a3 Qxc4 14.Qxc4 Bxh1±
11.Nxg6± fxg6 12.Qd3 Qc7 13.Qxg6+ Kd8 14.Rh3 e5 15.Be3 exd4 16.Bxd4 Qf4 17.Ne2
17...Qxg4?
17...Qe4 is only slightly better 18.Qxe4 Nxe4 19.Nf4±
18.Bxf6+ Nxf6 19.0-0-0+ Kc8 20.Qf7
20...Bc5
20...Bb4 21.Rg3 Qh5 22.Bh3+ Kb8 23.Qxg7 Re8 24.Qxf6 a5 25.Bg4+-
21.Rb3 1-0.
21...Nd7 22.Rxd7 Qxd7 23.Bh3
