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Bad Neuenahr Round One

Spanton (1911) - Stefan Becker (1721)

French Winawer

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 Ne7!? 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 c5

Via a minor transposition, we have reached a position occurring 27,241 times in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database

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7.Nf3!?

Fischer tried this twice against Uhlmann, scoring +0=1-1, but otherwise played 7.a4!? Stockfish18 and Dragon1 like the mainline 7.Qg4, and also 7.h4!?

7...Nbc6

This is the commonest reply in Mega26.

8.Be2

There is no consensus about White's best continuation, but more popular are 8.Bd3!? and 8.h4!?

8...Qc7

The engines suggest 8...Qa5 or 8...h6!?

9.0-0 Bd7 10.a4 0-0

More common are 10...b6 and especially 10...f6!?

Now both sides have castled, how would you assess the position?

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Black is slightly more developed, and has no pawn weaknesses, but White's centre-kingside space advantage and bishop-pair are probably more significant. The engines give White the upper hand.

11.Bf4!?

This seems to be a novelty. The logical follow-up to 10.a4 is 11.Ba3, when 11...cxd4 12.cxd4 seems good for White. The engines suggest 11...b6!? 12.dxc5, and now an apparent-novelty in 12...Rfc8!?, but continue to give White the upper hand.

11...b6

Probably not 11...cxd4 12.cxd4 Nb4?!, as the engines' 13.Qd2!? is strong.

12.Qd2 a6?!

This may be too slow, and seems weakening. The engines suggest 12...Na5 or 12...Rac8.

13.h4!?

This is the engines' top choice.

13...h5!?

This gives an odd impression, especially once White's reply is seen, but the engines are OK with it, although they prefer 13...Qd8!?, albeit reckoning that after 14.h5 h6 15.g4 White has a positionally won game.

How should White proceed?

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14.Nh2

Even stronger, according to the engines, are 14.Ng5 and 14.Bd3, but the text is also winning.

14...g6?!

Possibly best is 14...cxd4 15.cxd4 Nf5!?, even though, after 16.Bxh5, the reply 16...Nfxd4 leaves White well on top after both 17.Bg4 and 17.Bd1!?, according to the engines.

15.Bh6

How should Black respond?

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15...Nf5!?

This is Stockfish18's top choice, and for a long time Dragon1 agrees, although it comes to prefer giving up the exchange in another way, by 15...Kh7!? Allow both engines even longer, and they start fluctuating with moves such as 15...cxd4 and 15...Rfc8

16.Bxf8 Rxf8 17.Nf3

Black has no long-term compensation for the exchange, although in the short term the knight at f5 looks attractive

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17...c4!?

This is the engines' top choice, narrowly ahead of 17...a5, the idea being to make it difficult for White to open files for the rooks.

18.Qg5 Qd8!? 19.Rfb1 Qxg5 20.hxg5 Rb8 21.Nh2 h4!? 22.Ng4 1-0

There is still quite a long way to go before White's advantage can be converted into a trivial win. But the engines reckon White's advantage is the equivalent of being at least a piece up, and, with queens off the board, it would take a most unlikely blunder for White not to win eventually.

Playing Conditions (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler)

Tournament hall under preparation yesterday

Getting There (Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler)

CAUGHT Ryanair's 09:00 from Stansted to Cologne-Bonn, a bus to Bonn's main rail station, and finally a train to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, arriving at my hotel, which is also the venue, shortly before 14:00 central European time.

View from my hotel room

Northern Puzzle

SAW this serial number on a Northern Line carriage: 53712.

As usual, each number should be used once, and once only, and must be added, subtracted, multiplied or divided to make a balanced equation.
There is a perfect solution, ie one that uses the numbers in the order they appear.
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My solution: 5 + 3 - 7 +1 = 2

Rhine Chess

AM making final preparations for traveling tomorrow to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, a spa town in Rhineland-Palatinate.

There are three senior tournaments, divided into 50+, 65+ and 75+, with one round a day over nine days, starting on Wednesday.

The time control in all three sections is 40 moves in 90 minutes, with 30 minutes to finish, and a 30-second increment throughout. The first round is at 14:00, but the remainder are at 10:00.

There are 159 entries: 29 in the 50+, 77 in the 65+, 53 in the 75+.Ahrtal-Tourismus

Image: Ahrtal-Tourismus

Lessons From Bregenz VII

TWO things I have a tendency to bash on about in this blog is the advantage of having the bishop-pair and the danger of giving up a good bishop when you have a bad one.

But look at the following position, which was reached in round seven, where I was Black against Bernard Logie (1822).

Black has just played 6...Qd8-b6

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The position occurs 40 times in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database, and in 22 of those games White continued 7.Bxc6+!?, which was also my opponent's choice, and is the top choice of Stockfish18 and Dragon1. The engines reckon the move gives White a slight edge (Stockfish18) or even the upper hand (Dragon1).

I recaptured with the pawn, which is the main line in Mega26, but the engines reckon recapturing with the queen is better.

Position after 7...Qxc6!?

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There is no doubt White has given up the bishop-pair, and not just on a short-term basis in the confident expectation of quickly swopping off one of Black's bishops.

There is also no doubt White has given up his better bishop, as the dark-square remainder is restricted by the pawn-chain b2-e5.

White's one advantage in the position, as it seems to me, is having extra space in the centre, which must be why the engines reckon White is better.

A good way to try to understand such a position, I believe, is to let the engines play it out against each other, so here goes.

8.dxc5!?

All seven games to reach the position in Mega26 saw 8.0-0, but the text is Stokcfish18's top choice and Dragon1's second choice (behind 8.h3).

The text makes White's dark-square bishop less bad, but also slightly opens the position, which normally favours the bishop-pair, and weakens e5.

8...Bg4!? 9.Nbd2!? e6

Not 9...Bxe5? 10.Nxe5! Bxd1 11.Nxc6, when White has won a piece.

10.b4

The engines fluctuate between 10.b4, 10.0-0 and 10.Qb3, but come to more-or-less settle on the text.

10...b6!? 11.h3 Bxf3 12.Nxf3 bxc5

The bishop-pair has gone, but Black has recaptured the pawn lost at move eight

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13.0-0

The engines cannot agree on which continuation is best, but this is the only move that makes both engines' top two.

13...Ne7 14.Bg5 Qc7 15.Qa4+ Nc6!?

The only move that makes both engines' top two.

16.Be3!? Qd7

Again the engines are unsure what to play, and this is the only move that makes both engines' top two.

18.Bxc5 Nxe5 19.Qd1 Nc4 20.Rc1 Rc8

I am going to leave it here as we have come a long way from the initial decision to swop bishop for knight

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The final position looks unclear to me, with lots of imbalances that would make for a tricky middlegame, but the engines give White a slight edge (Stockfish18) or the upper hand (Dragon1).

LESSON: there is no doubt having the bishop-pair is usually advantageous, and giving up a good bishop when you have a bad one is usually disadvantageous, but what really counts is what happens appen next, and it seems most people who have reached the position in the first diagram as White have understood what was going on rather better than I managed.

Chess Tip of The Day 412

Some gambits are of dubious or marginal worth if the opponent knows how to defend precisely.  But others are perfectly sound, and your chess education will be seriously lacking without exposure to this unique opening form.

John Watson, Mastering The Chess Openings - Volume 4

Lessons From Bregenz VI

ONE of the hardest things to do in chess, at least at club level, is sacrificing the exchange.

Materialism is so ingrained that often the possibility of an exchange sacrifice is not even considered.

I am fairly sure that is what happened in round six, when I was White against Reinhard Döserich (1734).

The critical position arose after I played 23.Bc3-b4

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I vaguely considered Black might play 23...c5?!, but I thought Black's real choice lay in deciding whether to move the king's rook to g8 or h8.

My opponent surely felt the same, as he fairly quickly played 23...Rg8, but resigned shortly afterwards.

However, for Stockfish18 and Dragon1, the real choice is whether to sacrifice the exchange with 23...e5!? or 23...f5!?

They marginally prefer the former, and after 24.Bxf8 (Dragon1 prefers 24.Qh3!?, at least for a while, and both engines also strongly consider 24.Re2!?) Qxf8 Black has interesting compensation.

In my game notes I gave a line with 25.Bc2, but another possibility is 25.Re2.

Position after 25.Re2

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Black can pick up the a5 pawn at will, but there is no rush for that, and possibly best is 25...Qb4 26.Bc2, and now 26...Qxa5, after which, for the exchange, Black has a pawn, and opposite-colour bishops, in a position in which Black's king looks the safer.

A plausible continuation runs 27.Qe3 f5 28.Qd2!? Qxd2 29.Rexd2 e4 30.h3.

King safety is no longer a major factor, and Black still only has knight and pawn for rook, but it may be that Black's pawn-majority is the more dangerous

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The engines prefer White in the final diagram, but award White the better part of equality, rather than an 'official' slight edge.

LESSON: I can recommend Ari Ziegler's 2011 ChessBase DVD The Art Of The Exchange Sacrifice as a good place for inspiration (although it did not work for me in this particular game!), but there are doubtless many other good resources for learning how to sacrifice the exchange.

Chess Tip of The Day 411

There are sound chess reasons why the King's Gambit should be accepted. However, for some players, the King's Gambit Accepted may seem too obscure and complicated. Then there are players who don't like being pressed, and in fact savour positions which offer immediate chances to counterattack. Both these types of players may do better in a practical game - for psychological reasons - by not accepting the gambit. 

Edmar Mednis, Understanding The Open Games