Another thrilling experience for Sam Sloan

Yesterday, we played the final match in the Bankers Athletic League. This match was the playoff for the championship. Goldman Sachs was the opposing team. I suppose that I wanted to beat Goldman Sachs in revenge for firing my girlfriend Passion in January 1998, for which she blamed me, thereby causing me all kinds of trouble.

Unfortunately, they had draw odds in the match, because they had won more matches in the regular league. As it turned out the match was a draw. I won my game and International Master Bobby Kurniawan of Indonesia, playing on second board, won an exciting game against FIDE Master Krishan Jhunjhnuwala. (Do these people really work for Goldman Sachs??)

Passion was fired by Goldman Sachs, but I Got Revenge for Passion.

However, we only drew the match, because International Master Justin Sarkar fell to a brilliant queen sacrifice by Grandmaster Sokolin. Sarkar and Sokolin were both making a second queen and it looked like Sarkar was going to have an easy win, but Sarkar missed that Sokolin could sacrifice his queen for the pawn, and then there was no way for Sarkar to get back in time to stop Sokolin's pawn from queening, which would leave Sokolin two bishops up.

Meanwhile, Anna Khan Hahn won an embarrassingly easy victory over Glenn Statile.

The games on the two top boards were very good, but I do not have those games, so here is mine.

Since our opponents on the upper boards outranked us, it was absolutely necessary for me to win my game, as a draw by me would make it virtually impossible for us to win the match. Therefore, my opponent virtually offered a draw on move six by offering a trade of queens. Naturally, I had to avoid that.

The game became exciting and attracted a number of spectators. I feel that I had the situation under control at all times. However, I kept seeing combinations by my opponent where he would end up checkmating me. In one sequence, there was a way for my opponent to sacrifice both his queen and his rook and checkmate me with only his bishop and a pawn. In that situation, I would have a king on h8 and a pawn on h7. He would have a pawn on f6 and a bishop on b2. He would play f7 discovered checkmate.

Here is the game. Count all the ways he could have checkmated me by queen or rook sacrifices. However, I anticipated all of them, I believe.

However, after the game, International Master Bobby Kurniawan of Indonesia pointed out an easier win for me. On move 22 I could have played 22. .... Qe4 attacking the rook on h1 and also defending my pawn on b7. White would move away the rook with 23. Rhd1 but then I trap and win White's queen with 23. ... Ra4 !! A nice sequence, very hard to see.

Sam Sloan

An Empty Chess Board

[Event "Bankers Athletic League"]
[Site "New York NY"]
[Date "2002.05.09"]
[Round "16"]
[White "Iyer,Ramachandran"]
[Black "Sloan,Sam"]
[Result "0-1"]

1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 Nc6 3.Nf3 Qe7 4.e3 Nxe5 5.Nxe5 Qxe5 6.Qd4 Qg5
7.Nd2 Bc5 8.Qc3 Nf6 9.Nf3 Qh5 10.Bc4 d6 11.h3 O-O 12.b4 Bb6
13.Bb2 a5 14.b5 a4 15.O-O-O Be6 16.Nd2 Ba5 17.Qd4 a3 18.Ba1
Bxd2+ 19.Rxd2 Ra4 20.g4 Qg6 21.f4 Rxc4 22.Qa7 Ne4 23.f5 Qh6
24.R2h2 Nc5 25.Qxa3 Bd5 26.Rg1 b6 27.g5 Qh4 28.Rd2 Ne4 29.Qb2
f6 30.gxf6 Nxd2 31.Rxg7+ Kh8 32.Kxd2 Qf2+ 33.Kd3 Qxf5+ 34.Kd2
Qf2+ 35.Kd3 Rxc2 36.Qb4 Qe2+ 37.Kd4 Rc4+ 38.Kxd5 Rxb4 39.f7
Qc4# 0-1

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