Peter Long - Li Chao Revisited !

I receive an email from Peter Long regarding my previous article about his game against Li Chao in the 2nd round of the 2008 Asian Chess Championship League. In the email, Peter provide his own analysis and back ground about the game. I always think that there's no better chess analysis then made by the player himself because usually they know better about the situation of each moment/moves in their game.

About his participation in this tournament, Peter mentioned that actually one of the players dropped due to visa problem at a very last minute so he had to fill in to make sure that it would be an ASEAN team. He said that he is quite tired and out of shape so it will be a rating disaster. Does not help that he had to attend coaches seminar in the morning and working on the redevelopment of FIDE.com at night.

In his game against Li Chao, Peter mentioned that he actually is doing ok till suddenly he realised he had no time left and the last couple of moves were banged out in a hurry which is why his position rapidly deteriorated. He also mentioned that he actually lost the game on time!


Analysed by FM Peter Long

FM Peter Long (2353) - GM Li Chao (2622) [A00]
1st Asian Club Cup Alain, UAE (Round 2), 08.12.1926

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Bg5 Bg7 4.Nbd2 d5 5.c3 0–0 6.e3 h6 7.Bh4 Earlier I had many chances to get a better position but I kept hesitating as I did not want to get a bad position straight away and upset my team. For example, after Li Chao played the bad 7...Bf5 , Peter played 8.Qb3 forcing 8...b6 and I could have played 9 c4 immediately but i delayed it with 9.Be2 Nbd7 10.c4 g5 11.Bg3 e6

after the save 12.Ne5 instead of the simple 12 cxd5 exd5 13 Rc1 which will gives a big plus for white 12...Nxe5 13.Bxe5 c5 14.Rd1 cxd4 15.Bxd4 Rc8 16.0–0 Qe7 17.Rc1 e5 18.Bc3 Rfd8 19.Rfe1 d4 20.exd4 exd4 21.Bb4 Qc7 22.Bd3 Be6 This move was not the best but I had only 4 minutes left as I was calculating scenarios in a few moves time where I was looking to play c5, then Rxe6 and to try to exploit the White squares using Queen and Bishop and with a direct attack bringing my Knight and Rook and h-pawn into play. 23.Qd1 a5 24.Ba3 Qf4 25.g3 Qc7 26.b3 Nd7 27.Ne4 Ne5 0–1 and White lost on time