The Empire Strikes Back

Yesterday, this year's chess season brought a decisive league match for my team SC 1961 König Nied. We played the league leaders SV Griesheim who were leading us by two points. With only three matches to go we had no other option than to win. Not winning would almost certainly have meant that our campaign to ascend to the Hessenliga was over.

Taking our hardly stellar performances of the previous rounds into consideration it rather looked like a tough job for us. Nevertheless we eventually pulled ourselves together and delivered our best performance since almost two years, blasting the opponents off the boards. The final tally read 6:2 which is just insanely high, given the fact that we were the rating favourites at only three boards out of eight.

I had the pleasure to fight a theoretical battle in a line of the Accepted Queen's Gambit, where my book just ended with "White's attack develops smoothly" but without any further lines to learn by heart. This meant that I actually had to play chess, which I haven't really done sucessfully during the recent weeks. This time it was going to be different...

Uwira (2228) - Dietz (2304)

1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e3 Nf6 4. Bxc4 e6 5. Nf3 c5 6. O-O a6 7. Bb3 Nbd7 8. e4!

This is the most testing move. It is recommended in Boris Avrukh's book Grandmaster Repertoire 1. d4. Before playing the move I took myself ten minutes to recollect some of the theory. However, there was not a chance that I wouldn't play the move (-:



8...Nxe4 9. Qe2! Ndf6

Black tries to hang on to his pawn. Avrukh gives 9...c4 as the mainline, which returns the pawn while keeping the central lines closed. If instead 9...Nef6, Black gets overrun by 10. d5, this thrust being the main point of White's sacrifice. After the text move, Black will have to spend an awful lot of tempi and if he doesn't finally manage to castle things look sore for him.

10. Bc2 Qd5 11. Re1 Nd6 12. Nc3 Qh5?



Avrukh gives 12...Qc6 13.Be3 and says that White's attack runs very smoothly. When I analysed the position this morning, the best I could find for Black was 13...cxd4 14.Bxd4 Be7 15.Ne5 Qc7 16.Ng4 where White has an overwhelming position. It is certainly enough for the pawn, and the real question is whether Black will be able to survive.

The text move, however, leads to dire consequences for Black. I again took myself some time here but eventually decided to continue the race for development, relying on not allowing Black to castle at a cheap price.

On an even better day, I might have found the paradoxical 13.Qd1! which immediately exposes the weakness of the black queen's position. White threatens 14.Re5 trapping the queen while also renewing support for the d4-d5 thrust. Black has huge problems here. The best he has is 13...Nd7 14.d5 e5 15.Nxe5 Qxd1 16.Bxd1 Nxe5 17.Rxe5+ when the black king will be stuck in the centre and there isn't any clearcut way to finish development.

After my game continuation, White still has very strong pressure, so I won't go as far as tagging it with a question mark.

13. dxc5 Qxc5 14. Be3 Qa5 15. Bf4



After driving the black queen to the edge of the board, White now prepares to hit the Nd6, which doesn't have good retreat squares. If Black tries to castle he'll either has to give up material or allow White to build a completely dominating position. For example 15...Be7 16.Red1! Now Black loses at least an exchange, if not the queen, after 16...Nb5 17.Qe5 Qb4 18.Na4 encircling the queen. Therefore he must protect the knight: 16...Qb6 17.Ba4+ Kf8 18.Rac1 when Black is tied up nicely.

After the game continuation, new tactics emerge at White's horizon, especially the knight sacrifice at f7, followed by the removal of the Bd7 by Rxd7. It's hard to find sensible moves for Black, so I venture the thought that he might be lost already.

15...Bd7 16. Rad1 Nb5 17. Ne5 Nxc3 18. bxc3



If now 18...Qxc3 then Black is taken apart by 19.Nxf7 because he can't play 19...Kxf7 20.Rxd7+ Nxd7 21.Qxe6 mate.

Black is also doomed after 18...Bc5 19.Nxf7 0-0 when the big hammer 20.Rxd7! exposes the king. If now 20...Nxd7 then 21.Bxh7+ Kxh7 22.Ng5+ Kg6 23.Qe4+ Rf5 and Black is helpless after 24.Qxe6+ Rf6 25.Qe4+ Rf5 26.g4.

With the game continuation Black at least defends e6 but the queen is now vulnerable to discovered attacks.

18...Qxa2 19. Nxf7

Rybka suggests that the simple 19.Rd2 is even stronger.

19...Bb5 20. Qd2

After 20.Nd6+ Bxd6 21.Bg6+ hxg6 22.Qxa2 Bxf4 23.g3 Black has three minor pieces for the queen. I had around 20 minutes left to make the time control and didn't want to spend the time needed to evaluate what is going on here. Instead, I opted to let Black keep his queen but only at the price of a very strong attack.

20...Ne4

The only move. Black must block the Bc2 in order to save his queen.

21. Rxe4 Kxf7 22. Be5

Now Black's queen is far away from the raging battle on the kingside. At this point I think had around ten minutes left and my opponent had even less, probably not more than two or three minutes. In a situation like that, pragmatism must usually prevail over beauty, so my opponent tucked the king away instead of returning the queen immediately with 22...Qa3.

After the game it was claimed by a kibitzing opponent, who obviously believed that there is nothing in chess he doesn't know, that my whole attack was badly conducted because Black now allegedly could have saved the game with 22...Qa3. I was completely perplexed by such a coffee house attitude as it must be very obvious that Black is still in deep trouble. In fact, Rybka tears Black apart after 22...Qa3 23.c4 Bc6 24.Rf4+ Kg8 25.Qe2 with the idea of swinging the queen to h5. Now 25...Re8 26.Qh5 Qe7 27.h3 - we even have time for this, as Black has no moves - a5 28.Bd6 Qd7 29.Bxf8 and White wins a piece.

22...Kg8 23. Rg4 Qa3 24. Qh6 Qe7 25. Bb3 g6 26. Rxg6+ hxg6



Now it was my time to be pragmatic. With maybe three of four minutes left I first calculated the endgame of the game continuation and then only had a quick look at whether 27.Qxg6+ would win. Unfortunately I didn't look long enough and therefore I missed 27.Qxg6+ Bg7 28.Bxe6+ Kf8 29.Bd6 and Black will be mated at f7.

Thus, the game missed the culmination it was due. White now enters an ending two pawns up, which should easily be enough to win after the time control.

27.Qxh8+ Kf7 28. Qh7+ Ke8 29. Qxg6+ Qf7 30. Qxe6+ Qxe6 31. Bxe6 a5 32. g4 Ra6 33. Ba2 Be2?

Black blunders a piece and now it's really over. The game ended with Black's resignation once both players were sure that they had reached the time control.

34. Re1 Bxg4 35. Bd6+ Kd8 36. Bxf8 Bh3 37. Be7+ Kd7 38. Bh4 Rb6 39. Rb1 Rxb1+ 40. Bxb1 Be6 41. Bg5 Bc4 42. h4 a4 43. Bc1 1-0

Charly Records

These are turbulent times and recently I'm hardly finding time and leisure to post here. Matters will hopefully improve pretty soon but right now time is rare and precious and reasons are plentyful.

To start with I am now nearing the completion of my next to last thesis at university. This will be followed by my last examination and last but not least my diploma thesis, so that I'll hopefully be through that plight called studying by the late summer.

In addition to that a quick crush at chess in a cup match against SV Kelsterbach led to the discovery of new hobby. How is that? Well, after my opponent blundered a piece and resigned after 15 minutes of play, I got into discussion about the game of go with one of the kibitzing players. It was then quickly decided that he go and bring his go set and thus I played my first game right away.

I had already known the rules for some time then but that doesn't help much in the beginning. Imagine you only knew some chess basics and wanted to play a against a club player... Well, I therefore began to read what I could get my hands on about the game right the next day.

Finally, I've also been to the studios (-: That is to say I recorded two of my songs at my brother's place to produce what'll be called the Charly Records EP. Ralph and I are determined to write some more songs in the near future in order to come close to something that might rightfully be called an album.

Tomorrow we're going to perform again at Celtic Garden and whoever dares to find their way to the gig will have a chance to get one of the roughly 20 CDs that we're going to have with us. You could also listen to the stuff on YouTube (see the links below) but the quality of the CD will be much better, let me tell you! (-:

So that's it again. I hope this will be the first of a more frequent succession of posts. Cheers!

Tourettes - Untitled (2010)

Tourettes - Black Beauty (2010)

Road Trip

I suppose even bloggers need some time off occasionally and I certainly felt that way during the last three weeks. Now we're well into the year 2010 (happy new year to everybody, by the way) and I would like to return to blogging with a really insane story that took place last weekend.

One week ago two friends of mine, Pablo and Sophie, who are travelling Europe and earn their money by playing chess against passers-by, called me from Rome, Italy, and told me that their car got broken into and most of their stuff taken by the thieves. They had to return to Germany quickly but several things prevented them from helping themselves out of this misery.

First, the route back to Germany had to avoid Austria and Switzerland because in those countries cars are required by law to be equipped with winter tyres, whereas my friends' car only had allseasons put on. Therefore, the way to go was through France but unfortunately Pablo doesn't have a driver's licence at all while Sophie had her driver's licence blocked for two months in France because of speeding. So to cut a long story short, they asked me whether I could help them out by coming to Italy and driving the car through France. What follows is my recount of that road trip, which bore quite some similarities to a suicide mission, given the weather conditions brought to Germany by the trough Daisy.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 1am
I eventually arrive at home after a performance with my acoustic band. The bus shuttle to the Frankfurt-Hahn airport will depart the Frankfurt central station at 7am. So I turn in quickly, because it's going to be a very long day.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 9am
I'm at the Frankfurt-Hahn airport and now have to get my ticket. My friends booked the ticket in Rome and gave me an access code. In theory, I should be able to simply get the ticket printed at the Ryan Air check-in machines. In real life this procedure will cost me an additional fee of €40, which I don't have - neither in my pocket nor in my bank account. It appears that the Ryan Air clerk in Rome excelled in Doublethink when she told my friends that using the check-in machine would not be a problem at all while failing to hint at the additional fee Ryan Air would charge in that case. So with €30 in my wallet, I try to withdraw €20 from my bank account, and luckily for my desperate friends the ATM issues the cash.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 2pm
I finally arrive at Pisa, from where the road trip will begin. By now I'm really pissed off because after having bought a pack of cigarettes and a cup of coffee I don't have any money left at all thanks to the business philosophy of Ryan Air. The flight has been one hour late but given the weather at Frankfurt-Hahn, I'm rather one hour late than late. The weather in Pisa is fine, though. It's raining and the temperature is 5°C.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 4pm
After I met up with Pablo and Sophie we had a cup of coffee in the city centre of Pisa. Now it's time to get down to business. We'll try to reach Lyon, France, around midnight. A decision has to be made. Should we drive around the Alps along the Côte d'Azur until Aix-en-Provence and then turn northwards or is it better to try the direct route via the Fréjus Tunnel between Torino and Grenoble? Both routes have their pros and cons. The route via the Côte d'Azur is safe but approximately 400 km longer while driving through the Alps is shorter but not safe at all. Because fuel expenses, road tolls and time are also important factors, we decide to gamble and take the direct route. After all, didn't they say in the news that Daisy is passing through Europe from south to north so it should long be past the Alps, given that it's ravaging Germany right now?

Sunday, Jan 10th, 8pm
After four hours of driving we are finally past the Appenine Mountains and stop at the service area of Nichelino on the Tangenziale Sud di Torino. Sophie has been driving until now while I have been resting on the back seat. The journey between Pisa and Genova offers beautiful landscapes but it is a hell of a drive because of the innummerable tunnels. North of Genova the Appenine Mountains gradually yield to the plains of Piedmont and between Alessándria and Torino there are hardly any hills at all. At Nichelino I'm to take over the driving duty. We're now 90 km from the Fréjus Tunnel and I should get used to the car before we're entering the Alps. After just 20 minutes of driving I'm already pissed off because we missed the correct lane at the next interchange as the Italians are apparently incapable of setting up road signs that are readable well in advance. The road sign at the interchange was in fact located after the lanes forked, and when we saw it changing lanes was already impossible.

Sunday, Jan 10th, 10pm
We stop at the very next service area in France, directly after the Fréjus Tunnel. The 12 km long passage through the tunnel cost a heavy toll of €35 but we reckoned it'd be impossible to go via the Col du Fréjus where the road most likely has not been salted or even cleared. The highway offered fewer troubles. We hardly saw a snowflake and there was no ice. Now that we are in France, we're in prime Tour de France mountain stage territory. Looking from the service area to the south, the Galibier rises to approximately 2500 metres. Its mountain pass, the Col du Galibier is one of the hardest and most famous climbs in the history of the Tour de France. That is, in the summer, of course. Now the road signs show an alarmingly red fermé (closed), telling journeymen that they'd better pay the tunnel toll.

Monday, Jan 11th, 1am
We have arrived at Lyon safely around midnight and are now sitting in a shisha bar in the city centre. The Tunisian guy who runs the bar doesn't speak English so I use my rotten French. As I already have experienced quite often in France, this immediately breaks the spell. After I had a game of chess with Pablo, I end up playing two games of checkers with the French guys and in the end we don't have to pay our drinks - they are à la maison. Around 3am we finally leave the bar and park the car in the back yard of some company in the suburb Limonest. Time to get some sleep.

Monday, Jan 11th, 8am
My cell phone alarm wakes me up and I notice a snowplough clearing the parking area of snow. While I'm smoking my breakfast cigarette, the overseer asks me when we'd be about to leave. I say we'd be gone in 10 minutes and that's OK with him. He just explains that the guy in the snowplough is at work and needs to clear the lot where we're parking. Just imagine this had happened in Germany. I'm sure I would have got a decent earful about law and order and how could I dare to park here and so on.

Monday, Jan 11th, 11am
After buying food in a supermarket, we have driven to downtown Lyon again because Sophie needs to pick up a watch that was supposed to be repaired by the juweller who sold it. It turns out, though, that the shop has a rather dubious touch. Three different employees tell us three different stories about the whereabouts of the watch. In the end they talk about the warranty being void because of a fault of Sophie's and the thought dawns that she's never going to see her watch again. We finally head off, our mood having hit rock bottom.

Monday, Jan 11th, 4pm
We stop at a service area around Besançon in the Jura Mountains. The weather is very good as the sun is shining and there isn't any fog at all. We're now within 150 km of the German border and hope that the weather will be the same across the Rhine. Pablo's and my mood has become better again. He had been seriously pissed off about the fast increasing amount of money that was being gobbled up by the Péage and I had been pissed off about his being pissed off, basically. Seeing the sun and a clear sky was a good cure, though, and we continued our journey in confidence.

Monday, Jan 11th, 6pm
While we were descending from the Jura mountains into the Alsatian plains, the weather conditions deteriorated rapidly. Now we're around Mulhouse and it's all foggy and raining. Road signs warn about ice and it doesn't get better. As we cross the Rhine bridge between the French Mulhouse and the German Neuenburg, snow begins to fall heavily. Bad thoughts creep up on me. Daisy is still here, and we come to realise that the Alps had been nothing compared to the final 400 km that lie in front of us. Somewhere around Freiburg, Sophie takes over the car, because I'm quite exhausted by now.

Monday, Jan 11th, 9pm
We've been making an average of only 80 km an hour and now we even get stuck in a huge traffic jam at the notorious Karlsruhe-Durlach. As if this had not been enough, after we're out of the traffic jam the road suddenly becomes icy and Sophie loses control of the car. We slide and silently pray that no other vehicle is going to smash into us. Luckily for us we manage to reach the emergency lane and slowly crawl on to the next parking area, which fortunately is just 500 metres in front of us. I get out of the car and smoke five cigarettes in row. Some other cars stop here right after us. Most of them have been behind us and seen us slide. They got frightened and decided to stop, too. One of them gives us valuable advice on how to drive on ice. Tonight, temperatures will reportedly drop to
-12°C and after half an hour of agonising over the choice between freezing to death and risking to drive on for the last 100 km, another car stops and we ask the driver if he's noticed any ice on the road. He tells us the road was alright, which means that the winter service vehicles must have strewn enough salt by now. The show must go on.

Monday, Jan 11th, 11pm
Finally we made it back to Frankfurt. The first thing we do after getting off the highway is stop at a gas station and buy alcohol. After I'm back at home, I immediately down the small bottle of liquor I just bought at the gas station. The following two bottles of beer could now be consumed in a more tranquilised state of mind - phew!

Mitä me juomme jouluaattona?

While I was getting my head kicked in at the Christmas blitz tournament of Fitschel's club, he suggested that I could also write some posts in Finnish (yet also give the translations, of course). This was most likely a reaction to my explanation that I'm writing in English here because I want to improve my writing skills.

His idea has some merit but I don't think I would be able to write in Finnish without causing native Finnish speakers' eyeballs to fall out. I surely could write correctly in an orthographic sense but I don't think that I have got enough experience with the Finnish colloquialisms to make reading worthwhile.

What I'm going to do instead is presenting a recipe for Glögi, i.e. the Finnish version of the infamous Glühwein that is keeping the lot of us alive while we are wandering across our favourite Christmas Market.

I got hold of this recipe 5 years ago when my Finnish teacher asked me to prepare Glögi for the Christmas dinner of our Finnish class at university. Since then I made a pot of Glögi for my family's Christmas dinner every year. So here we go:

Ainekset (1 1/2 litraa)
Ingredients (1 1/2 litres)

• 1 pullo punaviiniä
  (1 bottle of red wine)
• 2 dl kirkasta viinaa
  (2 dl of clear schnapps, i.e. Korn)
• 1 kanelitanko
  (1 cinnamon stick)
• 4 kokonaista neilikkaa
  (4 whole cloves)
• 1 inkiväärinpala
  (1 piece of ginger)
• 1 dl rusinoita
  (1 dl of raisins)
• 1 dl kaltattuja manteleita
  (1 dl of roasted almonds)
• sokeria
  (sugar)
• suikaloitua appelsiininkuorta
  (orange zest, i.e. grated orange paring)

Valmistus
Preparation

Kaada viini ja viina kattilaan. Lisää kanelitanko, neilikat ja inkivääri. Kuumenna juoma varovasti kiehuvaksi (älä päästä kiehahtamaan). Lisää kattilaan rusinat ja mantelit ja makeuta glögi tarvittaessa sokerilla. Koristele glögi suikaloidulla appelsiininkuorella.

Put the wine and schnapps into a pot. Add the cinnamon stick, cloves and ginger. Bring the beverage to the boil carefully (don't keep on boiling). Add the raisins and almonds and sweeten the Glögi as you please. Decorate the Glögi with orange zest.

Cheers and Merry Christmas to all of you!

PS: I think I wanted to say "Kippis ja hyvää joulua kaikille!" (-:

A Freezing Frenzy

As temperatures in Germany fell to -20°C I spent my weekend in Bad Homburg, where I worked as an arbiter and chaperon at the Hessian Under-8 Youth Championship. Carrying my heavy rucksack as well as my guitar, I was lucky to reach the youth hostel, which is located at the bottom of a steep slope, just minutes before the heavy snowfall set in.

After preparing the playing hall, I made my way back to Frankfurt Friday evening in order to participate in my club's Christmas blitz tournament. This turned out to be a hell of a journey because it hadn't stopped snowing and the temperature had fallen even further. In the tournament I clinched second place behind Lather and won a nice chess book. Eventually I made it back to Bad Homburg without freezing to death on the walk from the train station to the youth hostel, which must be considered my most successful endeavour that evening.

Saturday and Sunday kept me occupied with my duties, which wasn't too complicated because children are usually able to settle disputes fairly on their own. All in all there were only two issues that took some care to handle.

The first was to explain to one child that the touch-move rule is indeed about having to move a piece once touched, no matter whether the other player complains before or after one touches another piece.

The second issue was a player who allegedly offered a draw and then didn't want to draw anymore after realising that he's a piece up. The boy tried to talk his way out of this by claiming that he'd only said "in this position I'll never agree to a draw". Anyway, after he owned up to actually having uttered the word "draw", we ruled the game drawn. So let this be a lesson to all of you out there - keep your mouth shut during a game as required by the rules. If you don't, surprising things might transpire.

After a horror trip back to Frankfurt on Sunday afternoon I concluded the weekend watching some movies with my girlfriend. Having dodged dying in the snow, I now nearly died laughing while watching Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator".

It's a satirical alienation of the Nazi regime, shot during the high tide of the regime in 1940. This was Chaplin's first talking movie, and gladly so, because I could constantly piss myself laughing at the great dictator's inauguration speech, which is rendered in some German sounding gibberish in order to mock the real one's oratory style.

Hangover Chess

The league match against Bensheim unfortunately brought about a major drawback in my team's bid for promotion as we lost 3.5:4.5 to our strong opponents. We were well on course after taking an early lead but got turned down in the end because of two gross blunders under time pressure, which cost at least one point, if not even one and a half.

This outcome is even more annoying because Lather and I came well prepared. Of course, when I say well prepared, I mean preparation as it was once understood by Fitschel's team SC Steinbach. That is, you simply get rascally drunk the night before the match and make an honest effort not to touch a chessboard while doing so.

I therefore made sure that my rucksack was tightly packed with various alcoholic beverages when I set out for Lather's place on Saturday. The obvious outcome of this enterprise was, of course, that we were badly hung over when we eventually awoke on Sunday. Thus prepared we managed to score two solid wins, although Lather had to work for almost six hours before he had finished the job. Needless to say that we were suffering the whole day from the vicious side effects of this kind of preparation...

I had the good luck to reach a won position very quickly and apparently was not hung over enough to spoil it:

Uwira (2222) - Kargoll (2201)

1. d4 e6 2. c4 Nf6 3. g3 d5 4. Bg2 c5 5. Nf3 Nc6 6. O-O cxd4?!

This is not good because White is able to reach some kind of Grünfeld Reversed where Black has locked up his light-squared bishop voluntarily.

7. Nxd4 Qb6?! 8. Nb5!?



After Black's 7th move, White could also have kept things simple by 8.Nxc6 bxc6 9.Nc3 which sets up the Grünfeld Reversed theme. However, if you're still intoxicated at this crossroads, you might be getting adventurous ideas. My move does not seem bad, though, because it's also Rybka's choice. It relies on the assumption that Black can't really play 8...a6 because White should be able to make his better development tell.

To my delight my opponent didn't sense danger here and in fact played that move, instead of e.g. 8...dxc4 9.N1c3 when White still has a pull because of his strong development.

8...a6? 9. Be3 Qa5

9...Qd8 10.N5c3 dxc4 11.Qxd8+ followed by 12.Nd2 also doesn't look very promising for Black.

10. N5c3 dxc4 11. Nd2 Nd5 12. Nxc4 Nxe3



This zwischenzug must have been what Black had relied on, but White can now reach a decisive advantage in various ways. The simple way would be 13.Nxa5 Nxd1 14.Nxc6 Nxc3 15.bxc3 which I dismissed because I thought it was not a clear enough advantage. What I hadn't seen here was that Black has no sufficient way to defend his b-pawn in view of White's Na5 followed by Rab1. So 13.Nxa5 was the clean way to go. My move is also good, but the position becomes a little messier.

13. fxe3 Qc7 14. Ne4 f6 15. Rc1 Bd7 16. Ned6+ Bxd6 17. Qxd6



Black is done for, because either he'll lose his b-pawn after taking on d6 or he'll come under a deadly attack after 17...0-0-0 18.Rfd1 followed by Qc5. My opponent now went into the tank for almost a full hour and as I was wandering around waiting for him to move I suddenly felt an urgent need to find the bathroom and be sick.

So off I went and prayed to the porcelain god, thanking him that my position was clearly won already! The rest of the game is Black agony and not even a few second best moves on my part could spoil the party anymore...

17...Qxd6 18. Nxd6+ Ke7 19. Nxb7 Rab8 20. Nc5 Ne5 21. b3 a5 22. Rfd1 Bb5 23. Bf3 Rhc8 24. Kf2 Rb6 25. Nb7 Rxc1 26. Rxc1 a4 27. Rc7+ Nd7 28. b4 a3 29. Na5 Kd6 30. Rc3 Ne5 31. Rxa3 $18 Nxf3 32. exf3 e5 33. Rc3 Ke6 34. Nb3 Rd6 35. a4 1-0

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).