Hi there! My name is Nils Eggink, a recent hobby member in the Litho Knights Chess club. Last week, I participated in the simultaneous chess exhibition given by Bianca de Jong-Muhren, and I had a blast. I hope to share some of that experience in this post.
Briefly about me: I have experience with chess that is quite common; participating in a club when young, then a long break from chess, and then more casual play in recent years since the online chess boom. I want to improve, but I also know that doing that on your own using only intrinsic motivation can be very difficult. Hence, when I found out that we would have a chess club in ASML, I was excited to join!
On the day of the simul, I was placed on board #9, directly between Ralf and Marcos, both (much) stronger chess players than me. After some speeches by Bianca (who is the president of the KNSB, the Dutch Chess Federation), Ralf, and even our CTO, Martin van den Brink, the event got underway.
The first brief moment of panic came as I saw that Bianca was alternating playing 1. e4 and 1. d4. I had spent the whole previous evening looking at lines starting with 1. e4, since through her career she played that most often. Luckily, the 50/50 fell in my favor and Bianca opened with e4 on my board.
I responded with e5, and went into the Petroff defense after 2. Nf3 Nf6. I was prepared to play an arguably dubious gambit, the Stafford, if she decided to play Nxe5 (if you are interested, Eric Rosen is a big fan of this gambit). In the end, Bianca played Nc3 and after Nc6 we transposed to the Four Knights.
My first slip happened already on move 5, since after 5. Bb5 I struggled to remember what I had prepared here. I decided to go for Bc5 in the end, which is not a bad move.
When I checked the line after the game, the move I would have wanted to play here was Nd4. After 6. Nxd4 exd4 7. e5 the position is quite sharp, which is what I was going for.
I will not bore you with all the moves in the game, if you are interested in the full version you can find it here. One more intense moment in the game happened a lot of moves later; I will first leave it to the reader to look at the position and decide what you would go for here:
During the simul, I was considering cxd6 for a long time. I think I missed that after cxd6 Qxc6, I cannot take the bishop on f4 since my rook on a8 is hanging! The engine prefers Nxd6 for this reason, but I saw a different move and went for it: Qe4.
At the time, I felt very tense, because I convinced myself I might even have an advantage! The engine does not care and gives +3 to White in this position, but only Qa6 keeps this advantage. I completely missed that move, but luckily Bianca did too!
Bianca stood and thought at my board for a minute, but it felt like an eternity. In the end, I lucked out, because she played Qxe4, which (at least according to the engine) gives up White's advantage.
I still felt that I might be winning, since after fxe4 I am attacking both the bishop on f4 and the knight on f3; however, Bd2 saves the position for White, which is what Bianca played, and the engine says that d7 was the only other option.
At this point, time became a deciding factor. The simul was taking longer than expected, and a few more moves and a few exchanges later we ended up in the following position:
At this point, time was up and each position was evaluated and finished accordingly. When she arrived at my board, we quickly agreed that this should be a draw!
This result was miles beyond my original expectations, so I sat out the concluding speeches with a smile from ear to ear. Mistakes were made on both sides (mostly on mine), but in the end a hard-fought draw was an amazing result for me.
To anyone who gets the chance to participate in a simul, my advice is as follows:
Say yes, do a bit of preparation, get lucky and have fun! :)
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