PLAYED on board two (of five) for Battersea against Pimlico 3 in division two of the Central London League last night.
Gianfranco Ameri (1867) - Spanton (1968)
Chigorin
1.d4 d5 2.c4 Nc6 3.cxd5 Qxd5 4.Nf3 e5 5.Nc3 Bb4 6.Bd2 Bxc3 7.Bxc3 e4 8.Ne5 Nge7 9.e3
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| How should Black meet White's threat to develop the light-square bishop to c4, hitting the black queen and pressurising f7? |
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9...Nxe5
This was played in 48 of 55 games to reach the position in ChessBase's 2024 Mega database, the other seven seeing 9...Be6. Stockfish17 and Dragon1 prefer the text, and also like 9...0-0, which would apparently be a novelty.
10.dxe5 Be6
Slightly more popular in Mega24 is 10...Qxd1+, but I rejected the move because it develops the white queen's rook while swopping Black's developed queen for White's undeveloped one.
11.Qa4+ Nc6!?
This may be a novelty. The engines prefer 11...Bd7.
12.Bb5
The engines reckon both 12.Rd1 and 12.Be2 give White the upper hand.
12...0-0 13.Bxc6 Qxc6 14.Qxc6 bxc6
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| How would you assess this queenless middlegame? |
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Black has a slight lead in development, having already castled, but the engines reckon this is more than offset by White's superior pawn-structure.
15.Bd4 Rfb8!? 16.0-0 c5!? 17.Bc3 Rd8 18.a3 Rd3 19.Rac1 a5 20.Rfe1 a4 21.f4 h5 22.Kf2 Bb3 23.h3 h4 24.g3!? hxg3+ 25.Kxg3 Ra6!? 26.f5 g6!? 27.f6 Ra8!?
The engines prefer 27...Bd5 or 27...Kf8.
28.Kf4 Bd5 29.h4 Kf8 30.Rg1 Ke8?
Stockfish17 suggests 30.Rc8!?, but both engines agree White is better.
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| White to play and gain a winning advantage |
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31.h5! gxh5 32.Rg8+?
Winning is 32.e6!, eg 36...fxe6 37.Rg7 Ra7 38.Rcg1, after which the f pawn is a monster.
32...Kd7 33.Rxa8 Bxa8 34.Ba5 Bc6?
Better is 34...Bd5 35.Rxc5 c6, with equality, according to the engines.
35.Rxc5 h4?
Better is 35...Rd5 or 35...Rd1, but strong in reply is the same move as is played in the game.
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| White to play and win |
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36.e6+! fxe6 37.f7 Rd1 38.Kg5
Objectively even stronger is 38.f8=N+!?, but the text also wins easily
38...Rf1 39.Kg6 h3 40.Rh5 Rg1+ 41.Kf6 Rf1+ 42.Kg7 Rg1+ 43.Kh8 Rf1 44.Rh7 Kd6 45.Bb5+ Kd5 46.f8=Q Rxf8+ 47.Bxf8 Kc4 48.Rxh3 1-0
Battersea won the match 4-1.
MY BATTERSEA SEASON 2024-5
DATE.....EVENT...........................COL..RATING..OPP'S RATING..SCORE..SEASON PERF
12/9/24 Central London League W 1933 1886 1 2286
26/9/24 Central London League B 1933 2112 1 2399
15/10/24 Club Championship W 1968 1578 1 2259*
31/10/24 Central London League B 1968 1867 0 2061*
*My performance is slightly better than this, but my win against a 1578 counts as a 1978 performance, which lowers my season's average despite me winning the game.
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