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On the Road Trip with RK…2010 All Girls'
National Championship, Columbus, Ohio
by
Sheila Heiser, Executive Director, RK Chess
Foundation
 The
drive to Columbus, Ohio was pleasant and not too
long.
As always, on a road trip everyone is
happy when arriving at their destination. The
Hyatt was very accommodating and enjoyable;
bustling with enthusiastic chess players of all
ages. After check in and unpacking, it was time
to acclimate to the venue and meet up with the
other players.
Everyone was excited to be there. This was
Georgia’s Wolf’s first National, and
Shayna Provine, who
is more seasoned on traveling and participating
in out of state tournaments, was happy to share
in Georgia’s joy of this experience.
The girls’ combined friendship and chess
made it an exceptionally pleasant time for all.
Georgia did very well; she played in ‘U10
and under’ winning half her games, 3 wins out of
6 games, placing 26th out of 55. She
was constantly alert, always ready to do
analysis of her games with RK Coach FIDE Expert
Eric Heiser, was a wonderful good sport no
matter how her games went, plus she had a lot of
fun and loved the experience. Georgia was an
absolute pleasure to be with at all times. RK
would love to take her on all our "On the Road
Trips"!
Shayna Provine played up in the ‘U18 and under'
the only 4th grader in this section.
Shayna is 10 years old and has been playing at
tournaments for only 1 year, her first
tournament was the Knights Quest in March '09.
Her performance was amazing, winning 3 ˝
games out of 6, and placing 7th out
of 16. Winning two trophies! (One in the main
tournament and one in the blitz tournament).
Watch out, Shayna may be the first home grown
female chess master from Illinois! She was also
a pleasure to be with all weekend; RK is very
fortunate to have such fantastic girls!
Huge congratulations to Shayna and Georgia, plus
big thank you to the great parents of the girls,
everyone made this trip a big success!
Click here: 2010 All
Girls' National Championship
Annotated Game analysis by Jeff
Cavaney:
White: Shayna Provine (1489)
11...b5 doesn't work because it
leaves the c6 pawn pinned: 12.Nxb5! cxb5 13.Qxa8+.
14.Bxb7 doesn't work because
14...Rxc3! 15.Qxc3 Qxb7 wins the bishop and knight
for the rook, and Black still has the threat of
...Bb4 skewering the queen and the rook.
Surprisingly White has no good
defense to this move. Black exploits the two
unprotected white rooks on the same diagonal, as
well as the pin on the white bishop on the c-file.
On the last move White needed to keep her queen
controlling d4 to stop this move.
21.Qd3 wasn't any better after
21...b5! 22.Qxd4 exd4 23.Bxb5 Rxc3 24.Bxd7 Rxc2 and
Black is winning.
Black misses her chance:
21...b5! was the winning move. Even after the mate
threat 22.Bd3, the block 22...g6 is still winning
for Black because of the deadly attack on the white
rooks. After 23.Rxc8 Qxa1+ 24.Bf1 Rxc8 25.Qxd7 Rxc2
the black king hides on g7 and Black is winning.
This is simpler than 22...f5 23.Bxf5 Rxc3 and Black
has to calculate all the ways the queen and bishop
can chase her king around.
Whew! With one rook safe, Shayna
can get her other rook and bishop out of the sticky
situation on the c-file, or do even better...
Shayna turns the tables on the
c-file: instead of a pin, now it's a discovered
attack by her rook and queen on the black rook on
c8! And just like that, White is winning. When two
good players compete, one move can be the difference
between victory and defeat
With the queens exchanged Black
has no chance to save the game anymore: in this kind
of endgame with pawns on both sides of the board,
the knight cannot compete against the rook.
The sudden threat of h4 mate!
forces Black to give up her knight for just a couple
pawns.
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