Saturday 22 June 2019

King Safety

FACED a junior this morning in round two of the open section of the Steve Boniface Memorial in the Great Hall at Bristol Grammar School.
Black to make his 31st move in Lorenzo Fava (1603/142) - Spanton (1884/171)
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Grandmaster Nigel Davies teaches that the most important factor in chess is king safety.
In some ways that is stating the obvious, but I find it a useful piece of advice to keep in mind when assessing a position.
Here both kings are exposed, and the presence of queens and a pair of rooks means the kings are far from safe despite the general lack of material.
Bearing in mind the adage that it is normally a good idea to get queens off against juniors as that tends to defang their tactical skills, has Black got a good move here accomplishing this?
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Definitely not. Catastrophic would be 31...Qa2+? 32.Qxa2 Rxa2+ 33.Kd3 Rxd2+?? as the pawn-ending is a simple win for White. His b pawn would divert Black's king to the queenside, whereupon White would clean up on the kingside.
31...Kf7!?
My main analysis engines, Stockfish10 and Komodo9, suggest moves such as 31...h5, 31...h6 and 31...Kh8, rating the position as completely equal.
The idea of the text is to free Black's queen from defending the e pawn, while not fearing a check from White's rook.
32.f4?
This loses, or at least makes White's defence very difficult.
Although Black need not fear a rook check, 32.Rd7+ was one way to draw despite looking dangerous at first sight because it leaves White's king further exposed. The point is that after 32...Kf6 White has 33.c4! as 33...Qa2+ 34.Qxa2 Rxa2 35.Kb3 Rxg3 36.Rxh7 Rg3 37.Kb4 Rxf3 is dead-equal, according to the engines, despite Black being a pawn up.
Simple queen moves, such as 32.Qb2, are also good enough.
32...Ra7
Simple, but very hard to meet.
33.g3?
This loses immediately. The engines agree White's best try was 33.c4 Rb7 (33...Qa1 also looks strong) 34.Qc3 Qa4+ 35.Kc1, but then 35...h5, protecting the h pawn, prepares to finish things off. The engines give lots of lines involving multiple checks by Black, with Black ending up winning a pawn (and the game). In practice it would be incredibly hard for White along the way to avoid losing more than a pawn.
33...Rb7
Out of a clear-blue sky, as it were, White's queen is trapped.
34.Rd6 Qe2+ 0-1
I am now 1.4 elo up in the tournament.

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