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Terafinal
2014 by Marcus Harvey
This year’s Terafinal was
probably the most open it has ever been, as
there were 7 players graded above 185! I was the
reigning champion and was also the top seed –
but by only 3 ECF points.
Round 1: I was paired white
against an 8 year old, Adithya Pramod Paleri
with a grade of 130. He played very well for his
age and surprisingly knew quite a lot of the
theory in a grünfeld where I played 3.f3, until
he blundered a piece on move 10.
Round 2: I was black against
Aditya Verma, a talented 10 year old with an ECF
grade of 154. I played extremely aggressively
and forced him to defend from very early on.
Just when it looked like his king would escape,
I found a really nice queen sacrifice that lead
to a cool checkmate!
Round 3: I played Maria Wang
(170) with the white pieces. We have played
numerous times, so I decided to finally play vs
the Kings Indian. Surprisingly, she slightly
confused her move order which I exploited and
ended up with a pleasant advantage. There were
holes all over her position and it didn’t take
long for her position to completely collapse
into a lost ending.
Round 4: This is always the
round that throws the favourites at each other
and this year was no exception, as I was paired
black against my friend Jamie Horton (190). He
played well in the opening and kept his slight
advantage throughout the middlegame.
Unfortunately for Jamie, he used too much time
and only just made the first time control. With
only 15 minutes left for him to use (no
increment), he had to defend an equal endgame,
where I kept it complicated and slowly improved
my pieces. Eventually, I forced a breakthrough
and had 2 connected passed pawns that were far
more threatening than his passed a and h pawns,
this proved too much and he resigned with 15
seconds left on his clock!
Round 5: Only 3 players were
on the maximum points; therefore this round was
critical. I was paired white against Akshaya
Kalaiyalahan (194), and William Claridge-Hansen
got the downfloat to the second seed Joseph
McPhillips. I played 4.e3 against the slav
hoping to outplay her in the middlegame. This
did not happen, as despite my decent opening, I
played a series of poor moves which actually
gave her the initiative! However, she failed to
keep the advantage as she strangely let me
retain my two bishops, which helped me wriggle
out. After finding some clever resources, I
achieved a crushing position where the bishops
controlled too many squares – this resulted in a
resignation, much to my relief! Joe managed to
beat William and so going into the last round I
was the sole leader, with Joe and Adam A Taylor
just behind.
Round 6: I was black against
the second seed Joseph McPhillips (221). The
first tiebreak used was sum of progressive
scores, so I only needed a draw to win the
tournament outright, even though Adam A Taylor
could finish on the same score. From a neutral’s
point of view, this was the perfect pairing as
an exciting, tense battle should commence,
between the pre-tournament favourites. How wrong
they were! The opening was aggressive from both
sides and soon after I was attacking on the
queenside and white was attacking on the
kingside. I managed to get the queens off the
board fairly early and so both attacks lost a
lot of venom. Knowing that he had to win, Joe
still carried on attacking with an unsound pawn
sacrifice that looked scary, but actually did
not work as I had some nice defensive resources!
After realising that he was a pawn down for very
little compensation, he offered me a draw! Most
people would probably have accepted, but I saw a
line to go into an ending where I couldn’t lose.
About ten moves later, I was
two pawns up in a rook endgame which was
completely winning, this prompted Joe to resign
and hand me the title! Adam A Taylor drew his
last round and so I finished one win ahead of
William Foo, who was clear second. So for the
second year in a row, I won the £2000 and got
the title of UK Chess Challenge STRAT 2014!
Marcus Harvey
August 2014
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