Summer Club: Round Two

AM playing in a summer daytime tournament organised by Surrey's Coulsdon Chess Fellowship.
It takes place on 10 Wednesday afternoons, the time control being 90 minutes with a 30-second increment.

Spanton (1960 ECF/1937 Fide) - Qaiyum Khan (1362 ECF/1543 Fide)

Irregular

1.d4 e6 2.e4 c6!?

There are 1,050 examples of this position in ChessBase's 2025 Mega database

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3.Nf3 Nf6 4.e5 Nd5 5.c4.Ne7!? 6.Nc3 h6!? 7.Bd3 d5 8.exd6 Qxd6 9.Ne4 Qc7 10.0-0 Nd7 11.g3!? Ng8!? 12.Bf4 Qd8 13.Nd6+ Bxd6 14.Bxd6 Ngf6

With Black unlikely to castle anytime soon, how would you assess the position?

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White is ahead on development and has more space, while Black will struggle to get his king to safety. Stockfish17 and Dragon1 reckon White has a positionally won game.

15.Re1

Threatening 16.Rxe6+! fxe6 17,Bg6#.

15...Nb6 16.c5 Nbd5 17.Rxe6+??

Missing that e6 is now protected by the black light-square bishop as well as the f pawn.

17...Bxe6 18.Ne5 Nd7 19.Nxf7?? Kxf7 20.Qh5+ Kg8 (0-1, 41 moves)