Report by Mehul Gohil
I had a satisfactory day at the board. Kept in the leading pack with two victories. Today was more interesting than yesterday. I was happy to play some creative chess.
In Round 3, I was paired against the most talked about player on the scene: Elvis Likoko. After his recent demolition of Olympian Ricky Sang, many pundits had touted him as the favourites to drive off with a Demio. The popular consensus indicated that Likoko is considered the best of the young blood to spoil the dinosaur party. In our game, Elvis essayed the King’s Indian Attack. I think this was his first mistake. At the 2021 Nakuru Open, CM Ben Magana mauled me badly with the King’s Indian Attack. He gave me a lot of food for thought, and I did my homework.
Furthermore, Likoko had employed the KID attack against me in the African Online Championships. As I was preparing last night, I gave it a priority. In essence, Likoko fell right into my home preparation. To make it worse, the dubious structure he adopted, creating long term weaknesses on the Q-side (exactly what black is hoping for),was the same structure James Panchol chose against me at the 2021 Mombasa Open.
Naturally, I checked my game against James Panchol and tweaked the good plan I had chosen (with some machine help). I ended up crushing Likoko positionally. He totally failed to evaluate properly the resulting position.
He clearly has much to learn about strategic chess from the dinosaurs. It was technically lost for him, and I bagged the point. It was a smooth game on my part and I liked how it went.
In round four, I was paired against the reigning National Rapid Chess Champion Shafat Abdi. I built up a good position from the opening as Shafat went into ultra-safe passive mode. He was getting squeezed, and we ended up with the position below.
It gave me satisfaction to execute the sacrificial attack which had already been on my mind for a few moves (h3 and Rc2 earlier were potential preparation for it).
Nxf7! followed by Bxe6! I had been aiming for crushing positional compensation after black returns a piece back (Nd5 after Qc4+), but Shafat could not believe there was a mating attack if he chose otherwise and went down in flames.
As I know from the last edition, the truly explosive and tough games start happening on Days 3 and 4. So I fully expect a very tough tomorrow.
Zadock Nyakundi holds CM Ben Magana to a draw in round one of the 2021 Kenya National Chess Championship.
Preview of The Kenya Chess Championship 2021.
2021 Kenya National Chess Championship on chess-results.com
Who will win the 2021 Kenya National Championship by Mehul Gohil.
Standings & Results of the 2019 Kenya National
2019 Kenya National Chess Championship Day 4.
PGNs for Open Section rounds 1 to 9.
PGNs for Ladies Section rounds 1 to 9.
2019 Kenya National Chess Championship Day 3.
2019 Kenya National Chess Championship -Rules & Regulations.
Video of Closing Ceremony 2018 Kenya National Chess Championship.
Day 4 – 2018 Kenya National Chess Championship.
Day 3 – 2018 Kenya National Chess Championship.
2018 Kenya National Chess Championship standings and results.
Day 2 – 2018 Kenya National Chess Championship.
Day 1 – 2018 Kenya National Chess Championship.
