Part 3:
The Bird Droppings
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| There seem to be two ways to accomplish something
special in chess. One is to do everything you possibly can.
If you do enough stuff, sooner or later you're bound to luck into something
good. |
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| This has been the direction I have tended to follow.
For instance, I have defeated twelve players who have held the title of
Michigan Open Champion, five of them when they were sitting on the throne.
This looks good until you realize that I have played all but two of the
players who have won the title since 1973, and that all of them have plus
records against me. |
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| No, to really accomplish something special in chess,
you need perseverance, the ability to concentrate, the willingness to learn
from your mistakes and improve your game—in short, consistency. These
have not been among my strongest qualities. Some incidents surrounding
the first Michigan Team Tournament back in 1975 might demonstrate these
minor faults in my playing style. |
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| But first, a few digressions... |
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| In 1971, I enrolled at the University of Michigan-Dearborn,
and immediately became a favorite in the intramural chess tournament.
In the finals, I was up against a fellow named Bob Boose; a decent player,
but one I knew I could beat. |
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| We settled down for the big finals match.
This consisted of going to the rec room, checking out a 50-cent hollow
plastic chess set and a red-and-black board with numbers in the corners
indicating where checkers moved, and playing a best 4-of-7 match in one
evening. Chess clock? We don't need no stinking chess clock! |
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| By game six, I was up three games to two.
Boose sacrificed for an early attack, but I was soon up a rook and bishop
for absolutely nothing. To be sure, I castled. |
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| Castling allowed mate-in-one. |
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| I didn't put up much of a struggle in game seven... |
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| Next, a pleasant memory from my first rated tournament,
the 1973 Michigan Open. After a slow start, this was my third win
in a row: |
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David Moody (Unrated) - Doug
Dekker (1510)
[B82/26] Sicilian: Scheveningen (Tal)
Ypsilanti, Michigan Open, 1973, Round 6
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1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.Be3 Nf6
8.0–0 Be7 9.f4 d6 10.Qf3 0–0 11.Rae1
| Believe it or not, we are actually in a book variation, though we've
taken a round-about way to get there. The recommended move for Black is
11...Nxd4; his choice allows some tactics to flare up. |
| Forcing some favorable simplification, since 16...Bxd6 is answered
strongly by 17.Qf5. |
| In those days, I fancied myself a good endgame player, and was quite
willing to stand on my technique. Fortunately, it holds up. |
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| Not a bad game overall, if I do say so myself. But
the real significance lies in the opponent. Back in round 1, Dekker had
upset Charles Bassin the #1 player in the tournament! After that, he had
not been able to win another game, and following this loss TD J. D. Brattin
jokingly presented him with a special fish trophy for beating the highest-rated
player in the tournament, then losing to an unrated. |
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| Meanwhile, I got cocky. Hey, if I beat the guy who
beat Bassin, just wait till I get my hands on Bassin... |
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| OK, it's the 1975 Michigan Team Tournament.
This was a six round event, held over the July 4th weekend, at Kalamazoo
Valley Community College (yep, the same site as the current Mini-Swiss
series). The event was not a roaring success, drawing only nine teams
of four players each. |
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| The UM-Dearborn team had mixed results. We
lost one game in round one, two games in round two, three games in round
three, and all four games in round four. In round five... we got
the bye. J. D. Brattin was an ingenious TD, but even he couldn't
figure how we could lose five game games in a four-board match. |
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| In this event, I scored 1.5/2 against my highest-rated
opponents, including (you guessed it!) a win against Charles Bassin.
Of course, that was his own fault; since he voluntarily gave up his queen
for two minor pieces. It almost worked, since I nearly had a heart
attack and had to walk around the building a couple of times to calm myself
down. But eventually I settled down and won the game. |
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| However I rather spoiled the effect by losing to
my three lowest-rated opponents. The final loss, which was a bit
galling, needs to be introduced by another mild digression. |
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| I was on board 1 in the tournament despite a disaster
in the recent UMD championship. Leading by a half-point going into
the last round of a five-round Swiss, I had already disposed of my toughest
opposition and was facing a much weaker player named John Reiss.
To show you how desperate he was, he decided to take me out of book. |
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| So, Reiss tried Bird's opening. I played the
From Gambit, and on move 11 grabbed my pawn back. He immediately
snatched my queen's bishop, which I had left hanging, and went on the win
the game and the UMD Championship. |
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| Keep that in mind looking at this game: |
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Les LeRoy Smith (1625) - David
Moody (1576)
[A02/06] Bird: From (Lasker)
Kalamazoo, Michigan Team Tournament, 1975 Round 6
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1.f4 e5 2.fxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nf3 g5 5.g3
| This was new to me at the time, as I was acquainted only with the 5.d4
line. In later years, Les and I played literally hundreds of speed
(the old fogey term for blitz) games in this variation at various US Opens
and other tournament sites. Since we are quite even in playing strength
but have totally opposite playing styles; the games and the repartee were
one of the best parts of those tournaments. Once I had an old BHB
clock in a cardboard box which had lost its top. We were playing
with the clock inside the box, so that you couldn't see the clock faces.
When asked why we were doing this, we replied that we wanted the game to
be decided on the board, not on the clock. "Then why are you even
using a clock?" "Don't be silly—if we didn't have a clock, it wouldn't
be speed chess!" |
| At any rate, just let me point out that 5...g4 grew to be my choice.
I think our current standing in the Great Speed Match is 743-738 with two
draws, but who's counting? |
| Setting up a typical Moody cheapo: 10...Bxf3, followed by 11...Nxd4
when White can't recapture with 12.Qxd4 because of the pin 12...Bc5.
The good news is that I saw this idea. The bad news is that I fixated
on it. |
| Discouraging, but only for an moment. I quickly saw that I could
fork queen and pawn with 10...Nb4, then play 11...Nxd5 and the knight would
still be immune. Wonderful! |
| Oh, no, not that piece again!! And even the same blasted move,
for Pete's sake! |
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| Back at the UMD club, I had problems showing the
win over Bassin, since all that people wanted to talk about were the Bird
games. To recover my honor, I challenged Reiss to a two-game From
Match. |
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| In the first game, when we hit move eleven, I scanned
the board very, very, VERY carefully. Sure enough, the scoundrel
was threatening to take my QB! Triumphantly, I defended against the
threat. |
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| He mated me in three instead. |
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| By game two, I was just the slightest bit peeved.
I quickly developed that QB about three boards away on the other side of
the room, so there was no way that Reiss could see it, much less capture
it. I won the gambit pawn back, won another pawn, and simplified.
Finally, we got into an endgame, and I had to bring the bishop back from
exile. |
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| Reiss had a knight and two pawns. I had that
dad-blasted bishop and three pawns. You guessed it. I found
the only legal way to walk into a knight fork which won the bishop. |
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| Despite this typical example, I did learn a few
things about chess. And though I never won the UMD Championship,
I did take a few titles in my time. In fact, I'm probably the only
player to win the Michigan Class A tournament several years after winning
the Masters/Experts title... |
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| ...But then, that's another story. |
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