Saturday, 9 December 2017

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.

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