It was a last game of my regular tourney in the local club. For the first time in OTB game I got French with White. Good, that’s what I am trying to learn the last half year. My opponent was rated ~250 lower than me, I learned that after the game as well as the fact that he overperformed and recently shared the first place in the big tournament in U1600 category. It took more than 30 moves and long maneuvering unless he finally opened up, that explains the title. The result was my best ever combination. Here is the game:
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 Nf6 4. e5 Nfd7 5. Bd3 c5 6. c3 Nc6 7. Ne2 Qg5 – not a book move and by my opinion not a good one.
8. O-O Qh4 9. Nf3 Qd8 10. Be3 c4 11. Bc2 Nb6 12. Qd2 h6 13. Ng3 Be7 14. Nh5 Bf8 – White is ahead in development, but the position is closed – Crafty’s estimate – 0.90.
15. h3 Nd7 16. Nh2 g6 17. Ng3 b6 18. Ng4 h5 19. Nh2 Bb7 20. f4 – ( Crafty likes 20. Bg5 Be7 21. Nf3 Bxg5 22. Nxg5 h4 23. Ne2 Qe7 24. Rad1 Rh5 25. Nf3 O-O-O with 0.81 estimate ), here – 0.08
20. … Qh4 21. Rf3 Qe7 22. b4 Bg7 23. a4 Nd8 24. Rff1 a6 25. Nf3 Nf8 26. Ne2 Nh7 27. Bf2 O-O 28. Bh4 – trying to penetrate deep defense ( Crafty likes it too, estimate – 0.83)
28. … Qd7 29. Ng5 Qe8 30. Nxh7 Kxh7 31. Ng3 Kg8 32. Qe2 f5 – beginning of the end, Crafty doesn’t like it at all
33. exf6 Bxf6 34. Bxf6 Rxf6 35. f5!
35. … h4 – I didn’t like Nh1, so I started to think and soon saw fxg3. I looked and looked and almost gave up to find a forced win. But it was impossible to pass on this nice knight sacrifice, so it made me to find the decisive quiet move . I spent 16-18 minutes calculating it all and then:
36. fxg6!! – forgive me if I am too generous, it’s actually the first time in my life I put 2 exclamation marks to my own move
36. … Rxf1+ 37. Rxf1 hxg3 38. Qh5 Qe7
39. g7! – this is a move I had to see before playing 36. fxg6. I also found here that I can play 39. Rf7 Qxf7 40. gxf7+ Nxf7, but it’s just material, there was something better – 39. … Qxg7 40. Qe8+ – Black resigned – 41. … Qf8 42. Qxf8#
Funny, that Crafty as usual spoiled a bit my euphoria, noticing that there was a mate in 2 earlier. Instead of 39. g7 – 39. Rf8+ Kxf8 40. Qh8# . So, I could also sacrifice a rook, almost “evergreen” :).
Anyway, I was happy with this win giving me the first place, best ever result in any tournament – 4 out of 5 (3 wins, 1 draw, 1 bye) and performance rating about 1800, which hopefully should bring my rating to ~1750.
June 17, 2009 at 9:37 am
Great combo!
Really, you should now be whipping this sort of thing out in your blitz game. Time is really needed more for maneuvering/development than for “solving the position” with a combo.
He should have castled queenside. He had figuratively all day to prepare …f5 (if he wanted that), with Bb7-c6-e8. Queen could go on c7 possibly even, no need to take every chance to put her in harms way with rook undeveloped/unconnected on a8.
Now your OTB rating and mine are nearly identical, congrats! 🙂
Recently, I’ve determined that I need to improve my attacking play. No disrespect, but this is supposed to be standard-faire for us because even if you mess up some, look at this guy’s undeveloped/blocked in bishop and rook, even the knight needs to get to f7 or something. IOW, there is really no counter-attack going on by a longshot; he’s basically strapped down to the gourney while you have an overload of attackers in place raining down on his king-side against a compromised pawn-structure.
You took away his time to develop the pieces, perfect strategy. 😉
I never would have considered …Nh4. If anything Nf7 or e5, sacrifice 3 pawns if you have to, but get some space and piece development, the position will be opening up either way.
June 17, 2009 at 9:41 am
SB: I never would have considered …h4. When I see a move like that I consider it further proof that my opponent doesn’t get what their position is in for.
June 17, 2009 at 11:22 am
linuxguy – thanks. I considered him castling queenside, didn’t want that, that’s why was that demonstration b4, a4, though I think I missed the moment and he could close up the position there after a5 or b5. Yeah, he played very passively, but I started to worry if I can open the position. h4 was bad , but after 35. f5 Black is finished, the best line Crafty gives is 35. … gxf5 36. Nxh5 Qe7 37. Nxf6+ Qxf6 38. a5 bxa5 39. Rxa5 Nc6 40. Rc5 a5 41. Ba4 with 3.75 score.
June 17, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Rollingpawns – I just posted a game of mine from this morning. This is an example of what I mean by the importance of attacking play since one would think that I would have simply lost the game to my opponent early on.
June 20, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Brave game Rolling pawns great finish.
I play like that all defencive and many moves with my knights looking for good squares.
I wished i played more attacking chess like the game linuxguy refers to in his blog.
Or had the guts to sac pieces like your knight.
I think he was fishing for you to make a mistake rather than force the play.
It seemed his queen was on a piece of elastic between d8 and h4,what was that all about?
Congrats on the tournament win.
June 21, 2009 at 12:05 am
chessx – thanks. You can try to start to play more active in online blitz, it’s easier and you can try some agressive openings. Yeah, his moves looked strange, I thought he wanted to get closed position. I liked your comparison with piece of elastic, I didn’t see any sense in that.