My intended theme is "How to Win" - a seemingly simple concept, but one that eludes the best of us and at the wrong times! During the mid-80's I played in over 100 tournaments and discovered some key elements in psychology, preparation and opening choice that served me well. I will share this with you this Saturday. I will try to bring the text of the lecture as a hand-out.

A snippet:

I played in several events in the US at the time as even then the USD was attractive. Of course, on the other hand, the competition was sometimes stiffer. IM Igor Ivanov was a frequent rival in these events and I recall facing 3 GMs in the span of a month during one road trip - a tough job to pay the rent. One such tournament was the Cleveland Open in 1985. It was a tough event, with GMs Gurevich and Gruenfeld attending, along with IM Ivanov, Finegold, Blocker, etc. In the last round I grabbed first by defeating GM Gruenfeld in the following game (thanks to Hugh Brodie for locating it!):

Hartman,B - Gruenfeld,Y [B87]
Cleveland,OH, 1985

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bc4 e6 7.Bb3 b5 8.0-0 Be7
9.f4 0-0 10.e5 dxe5 11.fxe5 Nfd7 12.Be3 Nxe5 13.Qh5 Nbc6 14.Nxc6 Nxc6 15.Rf3
g6 16.Qh6 f6 17.Rd1 Qe8 18.Ne4 Ne5 19.Rg3 Nc4 20.Bxc4 bxc4 21.Nd6 Bxd6 22.Rxd6
Qf7 23.Bc5 Re8 24.Rf3 Bb7 25.Rxf6 Qxf6 26.Rd7 Qh8 27.Rxb7 Rf8 28.Qh4 Rad8
29.Bxf8 Rxf8 30.c3 h5 31.Qe7 Qh6 32.Qxe6+ Kh8 33.Qe5+ Kg8 34.Qd5+ Kh8 35.Qd4+
Kg8 36.Qxc4+ Kh8 37.Qd4+ Kg8 38.h3 a5 39.a4 Qc1+ 40.Kh2 Qh6 41.Rd7 h4 42.b4
Qf4+ 43.Qxf4 Rxf4 44.b5 1-0

This variation was a big scorer for me during that time. I had noticed the most recent US Championship had venued this particular Najdorf/Sozin e5 pawn sacrifice, which the annotators deemed unsound. But, I subscribed to some Russian magazines such as Schachmatny Bulletin and was privy to an intriguing idea by then IM Igor Glek, which I expanded into a deadly weapon for the weekend swiss circuit. I subsequently published this analysis in an En Passant around the same time. I will provide the salient points to this discussion Saturday!

I will present the material in a manner that is accessible to players of any strength (except GMs!) and encourage you to bring in a game or opening idea which we may review as a group - which brings up another idea we (mainly Suttles) came up with at the 1984 Olympiad concerning optimum adjourned game analysis...

I hope to see you there.

Brian