First Draw For Battersea

PLAYED twice more for Battersea, losing last week to a 180 and drawing yesterday with a 199.

Date..........Event..............Colour...Grade...Opponent's Grade...Result
14/9/17.....CLL................White.....169.........183............................L
26/10/17...CLL................White.....169.........197............................L
1/11/17.....LL...................Black.....169.........158............................W
2/11/17.....CLL (Div2).....White.....169.........158............................W
15/11/17...LL....................Black.....169........204............................L
16/11/17...CLL (Div2)......White....169.........203.............................L
14/12/17...CLL..................Black.....169........180............................L
19/12/17...Eastman Cup...Black.....169........199............................D

Overall for Battersea I am +2=1-5 with a grading performance of 167.

Weak Squares v Dynamic Piece Play

I FINISHED Benidorm with a score of +5=2-3 for a rating gain of 8.4 Fide elo.
I cannot claim to have played an outstanding game, but I was pleased with aspects of my round six win.
Spanton (1880) - Jose Maria Najarro Garcia (1765), Benidorm U2000
1.c4 g6 2.Nc3 Bg7 3.g3 d6 4.Bg2 e5 5.e4
A Botvinnik English formation, as championed by Tony Kosten in his classic 1999 book, The Dynamic English. The set-up is generally reckoned to work best when Black has committed to blocking his dark-square bishop with the move...e5.
5...Nc6 6.Nge2 Nge7 7.0-0 0-0 8.d3 a6!?

Position after 8...a6!?, which goes back at least to the 1950s

Most popular is 8...Be6, but the text has been played by some strong players, including Joe Gallagher. Black scores 58 percent with it in ChessBase's 2018 Mega database.
9.Rb1 Rb8 10.a4
Played to stop Black advancing with ...b5. Now White is threatening to push his own b-pawn to b5.
10...a5 11.Nb5
This may be a novelty, but it was part of my plan in playing 10.a4. The idea is that the knight on b5 supports a White central advance.
11...Nb4 12.d4 c6 13.Nbc3 Qc7 14.Be3 b6 15.Qd2 Ba6 16.b3 Rbd8
Black plans his own advance in the centre. He uses this rook as White can now close the centre with d5, in which case the rook on f8 would be well-placed to support the push ...f5.
17.Rfd1?
Sloppy play. This rook may or may not belong on d1, but clearly White's other rook should go to c1, where it is opposite Black's queen and so prevents ...d5. Unfortunately, I was under the misapprehension that ...d5 was impossible anyway as Black only had three men supporting the move; I had missed that the knight on b4 was a fourth support.
17...d5 18.cxd5 cxd5 19.exd5 Nexd5 20.Nxd5 Nxd5 21.Rbc1
At least I get to occupy the open file with tempo.
21...Qe7

The key position in the game

22.Bxd5!?
I was quite pleased with this surprising move, which turns out to be the analysis engine Komodo9's second choice, behind 22.Bg5. White gives up the bishop-pair and leaves horrible weaknesses around his king. But in return he gets a central passed pawn, which White's pieces are better positioned to support than Black's are to restrain.
22...Rxd5 23.Nc3 Rd7
I thought 23...Rd6 was better, keeping an eye on b6, but Black may have feared this would lose a tempo later to White's knight landing on e4 or b5.
24.d5 Qb4
This aggressive move looks good as the queen defends b6 and attacks b3.
Komodo9 prefers 24...Qf6, but still slightly favours White's position.
25.d6 Bb7
A natural-looking attempt to exploit White's weakened light squares.
On 25...Qxb3, I planned 26.Rb1, followed by capturing on b6 and threatening, among other things, the a5-pawn.
Komodo9 reckons that even better is 26.Nd5, so that the knight captures on b6, hitting the d7-rook. Capturing the d-pawn with 26...Rxd6?? loses to 27.Ne7+.
26.Nd5 Qe4
26...Rxd6?? is still bad, eg 27.Qxb4 axb4 28.Ne7+, etc.
27.Qd3 Bxd5
Black's attack also comes to nothing after 27...Qf3 28.Bxb6.
28.Qxd5 Qxd5 29.Rxd5
White is winning.
29...Rb8 30.Rc7 Rdd8
Not 30...Rb7? 31.Rc8+ Bf8 32.Bh6.
31.d7 f6 32.Bxb6!
Black played on for another 30 moves, but the result was never seriously in doubt.

Happy Ending

I AM playing at the annual Benidorm chess festival held in the Gran Bali Hotel, where I am seeded 75th out of 384 entrants in the U2000 tournament.
Just for a change, I managed to come up trumps in an ending in today's round two.

Black offered a draw after playing 36...Kg7-f6 in Spanton (1880) - Andres Parreno Cueto (1766)

Black is a pawn up, but I was ahead on time and felt I should be able to hold a draw if my attempts to win came to nothing.
37.Ke2 Ke6 38.Rc5 Kd7?
This gives White chances. Analysis engines reckon Black should hold comfortably after either 38...f5 39.Ra5 g4 40.Rxa6 g5 41.Ra5 gxf3+ 42.Kxf3 Rd2, or 38...Ke7, eg 39.Rxg5 f5 40.g4 fxg3 41.Rxg3.
39.Rxg5 Re6+ 40.Kd2 Rd6+
Komodo9's choice for a long time, but it comes to prefer 40...Kd6! when 41.Ra5 Re5 seems to hold whether White goes for the pawn ending after 42.Rxe5 Kxe5 43.Kd3 Kd5, or the rook-and-pawn ending after 42.Rxa6 Rh5 43.h3 Rg5.
41.Kc3 Re6
41...f5 prevents White's next, but then comes 42.h4, eg 42...Ke7 43.h5 gxh5 44.Rxh5, and at least one of Black's f pawns drops anyway (Komodo9).
42.Rg4 Re2
The passive 42...Rf6 will not save Black, eg 43.h4 Kd6 44.Kd4 Rf5 45.Rg5! (the hasty 45.Ke4 is well-met by activating the rook with 45...Rb5) 45...Rf6 46.Re5 Kd7 47.Ke4, and White's advantage is huge thanks to his dominant pieces and Black's pawn weaknesses (Komodo9/Stockfish8).
43.Rxf4 Rxg2 44.Rxf7+ Ke6 45.Rc7 Kd6 46.Rg7 Kd5?
This makes White's task easier.
47.Rd7+ Ke6 48.Rd2 Rg1 49.Rf2 Re1 50.Kd3 Re5??
A serious positional blunder that makes the win relatively trivial by allowing White to get down to a pawn ending.
51.Re2 Rxe2 52.Kxe2 52...Kf5 53.Ke3 a5 54.b3 g5 55.a3 c5 56.h3 Ke5 57.a4 Kf5 58.f4
This pawn sac is the only way to win, but it is also very simple to calculate. The game finished:
58...gxf4+ 59.Kf3 Kg5 60.h4+ Kxh4 61.Kxf4 Kh5 62.Ke5 Kg6 63.Kd5 1-0.