Mate! Mate! Mate!

Tomorrow will bring the 5th league match of this year's campaign with my team SC 1961 König Nied. It's an away fixture against Bensheim, a town some 70 km south of Frankfurt and their team is quite strong, as they've only been relegated to our league last season and are now competing for first place in order to move up again.

Two years ago, both teams met in the higher league and I've got fond memories of this encounter. We managed to beat them 4.5:3.5 and I scored the first point after just about one hour of play by delivering swift mate against my slightly higher rated opponent:

Uwira (2293) - Petri (2316)

I had known my opponent for ages as we started our chess "careers" in the same region and also attended the same school. I knew he didn't know much theory due to his job and his other interests but that wasn't to fool me because I also knew that he is a very creative player capable of tenacious defending. In this game he screwed up badly, though.

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6 3. Nc3 c6 4. Nf3 Nf6 5. e3 Nbd7 6. Qc2 Bd6 7. g4 Nxg4 8. Rg1



We're playing the Shabalov Attack of the Anti Meran System and now the main line is 8...f5 9.h3 Nf6 10.Rxg7 Se4 followed by Qf6. He'd been out of theory after 7.g4 though and had to think his way through from there.

8...Nxh2 9. Nxh2 Bxh2 10. Rxg7 Bd6

Here White might play 11.Bd2 and leave the h-pawn alone while completing development. Play would probably become very sharp, however, which is why I decided to play it safe and continue with a small but stable edge.

11. Rxh7 Rxh7 12. Qxh7 Nf6?!

In the post-mortem analysis, I was convinced that this is too risky. Nothing has changed my opinion since then. Black's king will be stuck in the centre and this will inhibit black counterplay by means of e6-e5 or c6-c5. I believe 12...Qf6 was the way to go.

13. Qh8+ Ke7 14. Qh4 Bb4 15. Bd2



White has played a couple of natural moves and has now got considerable pressure. Currently the threat is to win a pawn with Nxd5 and analysis showed that the best Black could do here is to play 15...Kd7, impeding his development even more. His position might hold, though, because the pawn triangle provides a solid shelter.

However, my opponent didn't have a good day and committed an incredible blunder by not only missing the threat of Nxd5 but by playing a move after which Nxd5 will even bring about direct mate!

15...Bd7?? 16. Nxd5+ 1-0

Black resigned because of 16...cxd5 17.Bxb4+ Ke8 18.Qh8+ or 16...exd5 17.Bxb4+ Ke6 18. Bh3+. He could not even try to bail out with 16...Kf8 because White will give mate anyway after 17.Qh8+ Ng8 18.Bxb4+.



See also my teammate Lather's preview (in German).