This week's lovely pair of games are by David Sprenkle an American who is a former Illinois champion and writes:
I'm 60, married with two daughters, and an Instructor of English at Northwestern Michigan College here in the wilds of Traverse City, Michigan. I'm pretty much retired from tournament chess these days — except to fend off pesky, talented young players in small local events (the photo I've attached shows one such encounter). But I like to follow the international chess scene on the internet — including ChessBase.com, of course!
Sprenkle, playing black against Gavin Roupe in 2016
In any case, on to the games. As a strong player, David sent just a few notes but in highly relevant places. I've left these untouched and added a few comments of my own as JS.
We begin with the Agony, in which near the end of the US Open, he conjured up a splendid attack but then imploded. David writes:
This is my agony submission, as much for the significance of the game as for the outcome. After a modest start to the tournament, one of the strongest U.S. Opens of that era, my 25-year old self had managed to conjure up a five-game win streak and after ten rounds I found myself tied for 3rd with Igor Ivanov and Fedorowicz at 8½-1½, sitting just behind Korchnoi (yes, that Korchnoi, #3 in the world at that time) and Christiansen at 9-1. As my reward, I was paired with the youthful Yasser Seirawan (then #10 in the world) on board 3. I was duly crushed, but, with one round left, there was still hope for a fine result.
Then this happened:
Click or tap a game in the game list below the board to switch
David sent the games to the ChessBase drop box (see below) a while ago but I didn't get round to them because there was no email address and it was only when I looked properly that I realised how excellent the material is.
Please, if you have sent games to the drop box without an address then send it there now. There may be a problem with the formatting (people sometimes send a single .cbh ChessBase file rather than the .cbv archive or .pgn which is necessary) or I may want to clarify something.
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