Ilkley Round Five

Spanton (1998) - Andrew Wainwright (2030)

Sicilian Bb5(+)

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.Bb5+ Bd7 4.Bxd7+ Qxd7 5.0-0 Nc6 6.Qe2!?

There are five more-popular moves in ChessBase's 2021 Mega database, headed by 6.c3.

6...e5!?
The analysis engines Stockfish14 and Komodo12.1.1 quite like this committal move, although it is much less successful percentage-wise than 6...Nf6, 6...g6 and 6...e6 in Mega21.

7.c3 Nf6 8.Rd1 Be7

8...Qg4!? 9.d3 is slightly better for White, according to the engines.

9.d4 cxd4 10.cxd4 Qc7?!

Putting the queen on an open file like this is not often a good idea. The engines give 10...exd4 11.Nxd4 d5!? 12.Nb5, but with advantage to White.

11.Nc3 a6?!

This is probably too slow. The engines give 12...0-0, but much prefer White.

12.Bg5 b5?

Black is too far behind in development to try this. However after 12...0-0 13.Rac1 White is clearly much better.

13.Rac1 Qb7 14.Bxf6 Bxf6 15.Nd5 Be7?!

There are better moves than this natural-looking one, but Black is in big trouble whatever he plays.

White to play and win

*****

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16.dxe5 dxe5 17.Nxe5! Rc8

Or 17...Nxe5 18.Rc7 Qb8 19.Rxe7+ Kf8 20.Qh5 f6 21.Rc1 with a huge attack.

18.Qg4! 0-0 19.Nxc6 1-0

My final score of +3=2-0 was a 2087 rating performance in my four games against ECF-rated players. Assuming my k factor is 20, I gained 9.2 elo in those four games.

Here are the final standings:

1= Tim R Spanton & Joe Varley 4pts

3. Kevin Winter 3pts

4= Tom Hobbs & Sam Davies 2pts

6= Andrew Wainwright & Gawain Ako 1pt (neither played in the first three rounds)

8. Jacob Smith 0pts

There was no prize money, but there were trophies for the first two places, so Joe Varley and I had an armageddon play-off. I had five minutes, while JV had four minutes and the draw, but I played so badly he won without any trouble.