Kenya National Chess Championship Day 2 Report

Report by Mehul Gohil

I had a satisfactory day at the board. Kept in the leading pack with two victories. Today was more interesting than yesterday. I was happy to play some creative chess.

Round 3

In Round 3, I was paired against the most talked about player on the scene: Elvis Likoko. After his recent demolition of Olympian Ricky Sang, many pundits had touted him as the favourites to drive off with a Demio. The popular consensus indicated that Likoko is considered the best of the young blood to spoil the dinosaur party. In our game, Elvis essayed the King’s Indian Attack. I think this was his first mistake. At the 2021 Nakuru Open, CM Ben Magana mauled me badly with the King’s Indian Attack. He gave me a lot of food for thought, and I did my homework.

Elvis LIkoko (left) takes on Mehul Gohil. Photo credit Oliver Ananda.

Furthermore, Likoko had employed the KID attack against me in the African Online Championships. As I was preparing last night, I gave it a priority. In essence, Likoko fell right into my home preparation. To make it worse, the dubious structure he adopted, creating long term weaknesses on the Q-side (exactly what black is hoping for),was the same structure James Panchol chose against me at the 2021 Mombasa Open.

Naturally, I checked my game against James Panchol and tweaked the good plan I had chosen (with some machine help). I ended up crushing Likoko positionally. He totally failed to evaluate properly the resulting position.

He clearly has much to learn about strategic chess from the dinosaurs. It was technically lost for him, and I bagged the point. It was a smooth game on my part and I liked how it went.

Elvis Likoko v Mehul Gohil

Round 4

In round four, I was paired against the reigning National Rapid Chess Champion Shafat Abdi. I built up a good position from the opening as Shafat went into ultra-safe passive mode. He was getting squeezed, and we ended up with the position below.

Position after 20.........Nd7. — Position after 20………Nd7.

It gave me satisfaction to execute the sacrificial attack which had already been on my mind for a few moves (h3 and Rc2 earlier were potential preparation for it).

Nxf7! followed by Bxe6! I had been aiming for crushing positional compensation after black returns a piece back (Nd5 after Qc4+), but Shafat could not believe there was a mating attack if he chose otherwise and went down in flames.