My Best Ever Tournament (part two)

Spanton (2096) - Vladimir Tukmakov (2581)
Lausanne 1999 Round 2
Caro-Kann Panov-Botvinnik
Vladimir Tukmakov is a Ukrainian grandmaster whose best results, according to Wikipedia, were in the days of the Soviet Union when he finished second to Bobby Fischer at Buenos Aires 1970, second to Anatoly Karpov at Madrid 1972 and first ahead of Tigran V Petrosian at Vilnius 1978.
1.e4 c6 2.c4 d5 3.cxd5 cxd5 4.exd5 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nxd5 6.d4 e6 7.Nf3 Bb4 8.Bd2
By a slightly unusual move-order, we have reached one of the main variations of the Panov-Botvinnik. I had just bought Jacob Aagaard's Easy Guide To The Panov-Botvinnik Attack - it had been published by Cadogan in the previous November - and had started playing the opening to learn how to use an IQP.
8...Nc6 9.Bd3 Nf6 10.0-0
Aagaard only covers 10.a3, which turns out for quite some time to be Stockfish10's top choice, narrowly ahead of the mainline text.
10...0-0
White seems to get more than enough compensation for a pawn after 10...Nxd4?! 11.Nxd4 Qxd4 12.Be3.
11.Qe2!?
However this move is labelled a "reckless pawn sacrifice" in Karpov & Mikhail Podgaets' 2006 Batsford book, Caro-Kann Defence: Panov Attack. Normal is 11.Bg5.
11...Be7
Critical is 11...Nxd4!? 12.Nxd4 Qxd4, when Larry Christiansen (2563) - Yasser Seirawan (2647), USA Championship 2000 (Seattle), quickly finished 13.Rfd1 Qg4 14.Qxg4 Nxg4 15.Be2 Nf6 16.Bf3 Bxc3 17.Bxc3 Nd5 18.Bxd5 exd5 19.Rxd5 Bxe6 ½–½.
12.Rad1
Here the main move is 12.Ne4, but the text scores a better percentage in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database.
12...Nb4
Again Black can try grabbing the pawn. After 12...Nxd4 13.Nxd4 Qxd4, Stockfish10 and Komodo10 suggest 14.Bg5, which has been seen in three high-level games, with all three possible results having occurred.
13.Bb1 b6 14.Ne4!?
14.Rfe1 was played in Mihai Suba (2500) - Petrosian (2605), Interzonal 1982 (Las Palmas), which continued 14...Bb7 15.Ne5 Rc8 16.Qe3, transposing to a position that had been reached by Petrosian as White in 1967 against Miguel Najdorf. The latter played ...Nfd5 and lost; Petrosian, against Suba, played ...g6 and drew.
14...Ba6?!
This natural-looking move may be a mistake. My move 14.Ne4!? only appears once in Mega20, in the game Petra Papp (2256) - Pal Kiss (2362), Hungarian team championship 2011, and was met by 14...Nbd5 15.Ne5 Bb7 (½–½, 26 moves).
15.Nxf6+ gxf6

How should White proceed?

*****
*****
*****
*****
*****
16.Bxh7+?
In playing my 14th move, I had missed that 16.Qe4 is met by 16...f5. I thought the bishop sacrifice gave me my best chance of saving the game, but the engines point out 16.Qe3, when 16...Bxf1? leaves White on top after 17.Bxb4 Bc4 (17...Bxb4?? 18.Qh6) 18.Bxe7 Qxe7 19.Nd2, eg 19...Bd5 20.Qg3+ Kh8 21.Qh4. Best for Black, according to the engines, is 16...Nd5, when 17.Qh6 f5 18.Rfe1 is slightly better for White, they reckon.
16...Kxh7 17.Qe4+ f5 18.Qf4 Rh8
Best, according to the engines.
19.Ne5 Kg8 20.Rfe1 Nd5?!
The engines much prefer 20...Kf8.
21.Qg3+ Kf8 22.Ng6!
My notes show Crafty - I do not know which version - did not like this move, but it is definitely White's best shot, according to modern engines.
22...fxg6 23.Qxg6 Qd6?
I recall being worried about 23...Bc8, which is indeed better than the text. But best, according to Stockfish10 and Komodo10, is 23...f4, blocking White's bishop from the kingside. They continue 24.Rxe6 Bc8 25.Re5, and now 25...Qd6!? or 25...Qe8!? to get queens off at the cost of returning some material, eg 25...Qd6!? 26.Qxd6 Bxd6 27.Rxd5 Ke7, when Black's extra bishop is worth much more than White's extra three pawns, according to Stockfish10, although Komodo10 is not so sure.
24.Bh6+ Rxh6 25.Qxh6+ Kf7 26.Qh7+ Kf6 27.Qh6+ Kf7 28.Qh7+ Kf6 29.Qh6+ ½–½
Tukmakov could have played on with 25...Ke8, but Stockfish10 and Komodo10 reckon 26.Rxe6 Qf4! (this seems an only-move) 27.Qh8+ Kf7! 28.Rxe7+! Nxe7 (it is important that the knight protects the black king from a check at a7) 29.Qxa8 Be2 is dead-level despite the unbalanced material (White has rook and three pawns for bishop and knight).

How The Openings Got Their Names - Mar Del Plata

FELLOW Battersea Chess Club member Joe Skielnik returned earlier this month from a tournament in Spain where a mutual friend "had a couple of games on the white side of the King's Indian, Mar del Plata Variation."
Joe asks: "It appears it was first played in Najdorf v Gligoric, 1953, in Mar del Plata. However, I thought it might have had something to do with the carnage arising from the Battle of the River Plate in 1939, which sometimes appears similar to what happens on the chessboard in this line.
"Unfortunately I can find no connection, so only a mysterious coincidence?"
The Mar del Plata Variation is an important line of the King's Indian that arises after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8. d5 Ne7.

Starting tabiya of the Mar del Plata

There are more than 3,000 games with this position in ChessBase's 2019 Mega database, and the Mar del Plata is important enough to get its own chapter - the first - in Robert Bellin & Pietro Ponzetto's classic Mastering The King's Indian With The Read And Play Method (Batsford, 1990).
The variation is named after a tournament held in 1953 in the Argentine coastal resort of  Mar del Plata, where Gligoric used the black side of the variation to beat Najdorf and Eliskases, and Najdorf was later held to a draw in the same variation by Trifunovic.
But the moves had been known since the 1920s at least, becoming suddenly fashionable in 1952 when it was played at the olympiad in Helsinki and in the Soviet and Hungarian championships.
At first the variation did not do well for Black - Taimanov with the white pieces beat both Aronin and Bronstein in the 1952 Soviet championship.
It was Black's success with the variation in Argentina that gained it the name Mar del Plata (the name of the city literally translates from Spanish as Sea of Silver, but in this case Plata refers to the country's Plata region rather than directly to silver or the River Plate - Rio de la Plata in Spanish).
Here is one of the variation's less-successful outings.
Ivan Nemet (GM2412) - Spanton (2250*)
Simul, Villars-sur-Ollon, 2001
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.0-0 Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1
This was White's response from the earliest days of the variation, although its popularity has been challenged by 9.b4. The idea of both moves is to press on with c5 (after Nd3 or Be3 in the case of 9.Ne1) and to attack on the queenside before Black can organise a mating attack on the kingside.
9...Nd7 10.Be3
This has become more popular than the immediate Nd3.
10...f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.Rc1 h5 14.c5 Nf6?
Correct was 14...Nxc5, and if 15.b4, the move I was worried about, then 15...Na6. Black need not fear 16.Bxa6?! bxa6 as Black's kingside attack is enhanced by the absence of White's light-square bishop.
15.cxd6 cxd6 16.Nb5 Ne8 17.Nxa7 Kh8
17...Bd7 was played in Stefan Docx (2384) - Slavisa Brenjo (2495), European Championship 2009, but 18.Qb3 Ng6 19.Qxb7 Rb8 20.Nc6 stopped Black getting a strong-enough attack to compensate for his disappeared queenside (1-0, 37 moves).
18.Nxc8 Rxc8 19.Rxc8 Qxc8 20.Nd3 Rg8 21.Kh1 Bf8 22.Qc1 Qd7 23.Qc3 g4??
A blunder, but Black's kingside attack is getting nowhere anyway.
The remaining moves were:
24.Nxf4 Nf6 25.Ne6 gxf3? 26.Qxf3 Ng4? 27.Nxf8 1-0
*My Swiss rating at the time.