Norman Richards

One of the great benefits of the insei league is the simultaneous games with the teachers.  I played my second simul of the month with our primary teacher, Alexander Dinerchtein [3p]n (breakfast), tonight.  Like all B group players, we play with a 2 stone handicap.  This is, of course, way under-handicapped, but it's hard to say what the proper handicap is for a simultaneous game is.  I can say that it's hard enough that no B group student has one a simultaneous game at 2h against our teachers this month, but it's not so overly mismatched that we can't have interesting games with a chance to win.

Tonight was my big chance, and I got closer than I have ever gotten before against breakfast.  Until move 131, the game is quite close, and breakfast suggests black is probably slightly ahead.  Take a look at the position here.

Dealing with a clamp like this is not difficult, but for some reason I couldn't correctly read the sequence here.  I was certain that breakfast would not play this move unless it were a real threat, but I just couldn't read it right, so I responded with the block below.  Of course the clamp does work, as white kindly demonstrated for me in the game.  After this, the close game and potential win turned in to a loss by 9.5 points.  Devastating!  

Despite my mistakes, I'm really happy with the way I played.  I can't wait to get this game reviewed so I can learn from the painful blunders.