IN this occasional series I am going through my decisive games of 20 moves or fewer.
Barbican (London) Rapid 1990
Alekhine Defence
1.e4 Nf6 2.Nc3!?
International master John Cox stated in Starting Out: Alekhine's Defence that in his experience with the opening he faced 2.Nc3!? more than half of the time.
2...d5 3.exd5 Nxd5 4.Bc4!? Nxc3!?
More popular are 4...e6, 4...c6 and especially 4...Nb6, all of which score slightly better than the text in ChessBase's 2026 Mega database.
5.Qf3!? e6 6.dxc3!?
Slightly more common is 6.Qxc3, with pressure against g7, but Stockfish17.1 and Dragon1 prefer text.
6...Nc6
 |
| How should White proceed? |
*****
*****
*****
*****
7.Ne2?!
Probably better is 7.Qe2, clearing the f3 square for the white king's knight, and preventing 7...Ne5.
7...Ne5 8.Bb5+!? c6 9.Qe4 Qd5 10.Qxd5 exd5 11.Bd3 Bd6 12.Be3 0-0 13.Kd2?! Ng4!? 14.f3 Nxe3 15.Kxe3 c5!? 16.Rae1??
Completely missing one of the points - arguably the only point - of Black's last move. Necessary is 16.b3, albeit Black is better.
16...c4 0-1
LESSON: when the opponent makes a move that does not seem at first glance to have much going for it, there are two possibilities - either the move really does not have much going for it, or you have missed the idea entirely.
Hi Tim, I'm not sure if you're aware but I covered for you a few times while you were on annual leave at The Sun. First as a giant rat and then as a second rate Aaron Barschak clone. Have you ever considered a biography? grahamdiggines@hotmail.com
ReplyDeleteHa! No, I wasn't aware - but would live to see the pix! They twice made up a spread of some of my costume adventures, but it never got past the proof stage. Wish I'd kept a proof as all the stories and pix have fallen off the Internet...
DeleteStill can't sub my own copy properly - "live" should be "love"
Delete