Tuesday 24 April 2018

Bad Wiessee (part three)

THE top seed, German FM Gottfried Schumacher, was my fourth-round opponent, and there was a surprise awaiting me as early as move four.
Schumacher (2283) - Spanton (1878)
1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.Bc4 Nxe4
GS spent more than 25 minutes on his next move, explaining after the game that he had not previously come across 3...Nxe4.
4.Bxf7+?!
I assumed 'everyone' played 4.Qh5, but the text has been tried by 2400+ players and was used by Hua Ni (2587) to beat Yevgeniy Vladimirov (2621) at the 2004 Fide world championship knockout.
4...Kxf7 5.Nxe4 d5 6.Qf3+?!
This is tempting, and was played (unsuccessfully) in the 1890s by Mason and Mieses, but is probably just bad.
It looks as if White has to drop his queen's knight back to g3 or c3, when Black has time to castle by hand, eg ...Be7, ...Rf8 and ...Kg8, after which his bishop-pair and lovely centre must give him the edge.
6...Kg8 7.Ng5 Qd7
Not 7...Qxg5?? because of 8.Qxd5 and mates.
8.d4 e4 9.Qb3
Black to play his ninth move
9...Nc6
This is OK, but simpler and better was 9...h6. I rejected it because of 10.Nxe4, missing that after 10...Qe6 11.f3, Black can capture the knight straight away because his queen on e6 is protected by the c8 bishop.
10.Ne2 Na5 11.Qc3 Nc4??
I had originally intended 11...Nc6, the point of the manoeuvre being to break the pin on the d5 pawn. Instead I have set up my opponent with the same simple combination as was my undoing in a game earlier this month at St Albans.
12.Nxe4
I have quickly gone from being much better to  much worse, and I did indeed pay the full price for my weak play (1-0, 59 moves).

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