Some of the basic principles for chess openings include developing your pieces by moving them once; not making too many pawn moves that have little purpose; making coordinated moves that form a plan; and by-the-way watch out for your pawn on f7 if you are Black, it can sometimes be vulnerable to early attacks.

Lee Brockwell (ECF 111) playing White in his first Harvey Cup match for Sidcup was up against Petts Wood’s Phil Wheeler (ECF 112) playing Black a couple of weeks ago. The pair should have been equally matched, but Phil decided to ignore some of those basic opening principles and the lesson was quickly over. This is what can happen if you make a few aimless pawn moves, pick up the same Knight three times, and forget about that exposed f7 square in the opening.

The game started as a Queen’s Gambit Accepted. By move 7 White has a huge advantage in development. At this stage Black has been weakened, but not beaten. He then makes a disastrous move, b6 in an attempt to fianchetto his light squared Bishop, when e6 would at least given his dark squared Bishop some scope and helped defend the f7 pawn. Lee wastes little time in bringing the game to a swift conclusion.

PGN

[pgn height=400 layout=horizontal autoplayMode=none] [Event "Sidcup V Petts Wood"] [Date "2013.02.15"] [White "Brockwell, Lee"] [Black "Wheeler, Phil"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "D24"] [PlyCount "33"] [TimeControl "240+2"] 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 h6 5. e3 Nd5 6. Bxc4 Nxc3 7. bxc3 b6 8. Ne5 e6 9. Qf3 f6 10. Qh5+ Ke7 11. Qf7+ Kd6 12. Ba3+ c5 13. Rd1 Qe7 14. dxc5+ Kxe5 15. f4+ Ke4 16. Qg6+ Kxe3 17. Bc1# 1-0 [/pgn]

David Gilbert