VCT 2 - Quarter Final Story

By Bikash Sherpa

With eight players remaining, the Quarter-finals of VCT - Thug Chess - 2 proceeded with the below exciting matches - 

Match # QF1     :         Matcho (HopelessIndian) V Masid (masidhere) 

Winner              :          Matcho 

Our one man army manager for VCT 2, Matcho began his match with Masid with Black pieces. As I have mentioned earlier, Masid has tendency to push his pawns too far from the king. The same thing happened in this match, Masid pushed his g Pawn from g4 to g5 (see below) which allowed HopelessIndian's knight to infiltrate towards white side from h5 to f4 forming an outpost (Outposts are a favorable position on chess board from which an attack can be launched, particularly using a knight).

From there Matcho launched an incredible attack, after which Masid resigned. Chess.com's accuracy of 97% for Matcho supports my analysis. He has to perform with similar accuracy when he meets top seed Sandy in the Semi-Final match.

Match # QF2     :         Irfan (Irfan_raza6) V Avik (champ2w) 

Winner              :         Irfan won

Having faced top seed in the group stage, Avik began against 2nd seed Irfan with d4 with white pieces. Irfan responded with Slav defence and the game was equal (even better for Avik) until, believe it or not, as it happened in the 1st quarter final, Avik pushed his f pawn too far from f3 to f4.

This allowed Irfan's knight to jump from g5 to e4 to form an outpost in white's camp. After that the game proceeded with trade of pieces (Queen and Rooks), it was a game of Irfan's good Knight V Avik's bad Bishop (notice how black's all pawns are in white square which are untouchable for white's dark squared Bishop)

Irfan Queened a pawn and mated white soon after. It has been bad luck for Avik but he played good games and has VCT 3 to look forward to. 

Match #  QF 3          :         Aneek (Aneek_roy) V Bikash (BIKASHSHERPA)

 

Winner                     :         Bikash

I again got lucky to play white pieces and I began with d4, Aneek replied with Slav defence (d4,d5,c4,c6).

The game was positional till move 20 when Aneek allowed my rook to infiltrate his 7th Rank (part of basic Rook endgame theory). Then he blundered his light-squared Bishop.

Aneek tried hard after that with incredible Rook+Queen attach on my white King but I managed to hold on to my advantage and Aneek resigned shortly.

It has been very good tournament for Aneek who managed to reached Quarter-Finals "powered by Himsagar Mango". 

Match # QF 4         :           Pablo (changpablo) V Sandy (Buhu_s) 

Winner                   :           Sandy won

The game was incredibly short with only 13 moves. Buhu_s again opened with his signature Queens Gambit. Pablo played passively, and with incredibly strong attack, Sandy mated Pablo in 13 moves. 

With the above games, we have reached Semi-Finals with the below pairings and it looks like possibly we will have 2 top seeds in a lip-smacking finals. HopelessIndian and myself have to play our hearts out to have any chance of reaching to the Finals.

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Semi-Finals line up:

Match # SF 1         :            Bikash (BIKASHSHERPA) V Irfan(Irfan_raza6)

Match # SF 2         :            Sandy (Buhu_s) V Matcho (HopelessIndian)

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# Game of the round:  Irfan (Irfan_raza6) V Avik (champ2w) for their great game. 

# Player of the round:  Sandy for checkmating in 13 moves.

# Surprise/Shock/Comeback of the round:  Aneek's positional play.

# Tactics/positional play of the round:  Irfan's pawn awareness.

# Special Note:  Power to both me and HopelessIndian who are playing incredible tough and high rated opponents in the upcoming semi final round.

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