European Senior Team (65+) Round Eight

Spanton (1800) - Stjepan Novak (1499)

English/Nimzo-Indian/Irregular Queen's Pawn

1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 a6!?

Tony Miles was famous for playing this type of thing.

3.d4

I was surprised to find 714 examples of this position in ChessBase's 2023 Mega database

*****

*****

*****

*****

*****

3...e6

Much more popular is 3...c5!?, which scores 55% in Mega23.

4.e4

For what it is worth, ChessBase classifies this as a Nimzo-Indian.

4...Bb4 5.Bd3 Ne4 6.e5

This was played by Emmanuel Lasker in a simul, and is good enough for an edge, according to Stockfish16 and Komodo14.1, but they prefer 6.cxd5 exd5 7.e5.

6...Ne4

The engines reckon 6...dxc4!? is better.

7.Bxe4 dxe4 8.f3?!

A good rule-of-thumb about this move, I believe, is that it should only be played if the follow-up fxe4 is a threat. Here it is not as, even if it were White to move again, 9.fxe4 could be met by 9...Qh4+.

8...Bxc3+ 9.bxc3 exf3?

This plays into White's hands. The engines reckon 9...c5 more-or-less equalises.

10.Nxf3 f6?

Black was already positionally lost, according to the engines, but this makes matters worse.

11.exf6 Qxf6 12.Ba3!?
Keeping the black king in the centre of the board is almost certainly stronger than harassing the queen with 12.Bg5.

12..Nc6 13.0-0 b5??

Oh dear.

The game finished:

14.Ne5 Qg5 15.Bc1 Qh4 16.Rf4 Qe7 17.Qh5+!? g6 18.Nxg6 Kd7? 19.Nxe7 1-0

FULL TEAM RESULT

England 3 v Mursko Središće
Richard Freeman (1987) 1-0 Stjepan Vadlja (1629)
David Tucker (1898) 0-1 Alojz Sobočanec (1762)
Tim Spanton (1800) 1-0 Stjepan Novak (1499)
Robert Kane (1723) 1-0 Zvonko Petanjek (1595)

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