Fundamentals (part 51)

Peter R Smith (2073) - Spanton (1927)
Scottish Championship (Paisley) 2018

White has just captured on d5 -  is his extra pawn enough to win?

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Yes, but White has to find the correct plan.
31...g4
I felt this gave the best hope as I now have two reserve tempi with the h7 pawn.
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32.d4?
Any king move wins. The problem with the text is that from now on either the white king is tied to protecting the d4 pawn, or White will have to play dxc5, when the reply ...bxc5 is good enough to draw as the white king cannot penetrate the black position. The game continuation should make these points clear, and then I will show why any king move wins.
32...Ke7 33.Kd3 Kd7 34.a4
The analysis engine Komodo11.01 at first reckons White is winning, or at least much better, after 34.a3, but soon changes its evaluation as the problem of the d4 pawn is not solved.
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34...cxd4!
The only drawing move, as 34...Kc7, for example, is met by 35.a5! when there are two main lines: A) 35...bxa5 36.dxc5 dxc5 37.Kc3 Kb6 38.Kb3 Kb7 39.Ka4 Kb6 40.d6! Kc6 41.Kxa5 Kxd6 42.Kb6 etc; B) 35...cxd4 36.axb6+ Kxb6 37.Kxd4 with c5 to come.
35.Kxd4 Kc7 36.Kc3 Kb7 37.Kb3 Ka7 38.Kb4 Ka6 39.Kb3 Ka7 40.Kc3 Kb7 ½–½
Going back to the position after 33...Kd7, the thought arises whether White can win by exchanging on c5 and trying to penetrate with his king on the queenside.
After 34.dxc5 bxc5 35.Kc3 Kc7 36.Kb3 Kb6 37.Ka4 Ka6 it is clear the answer is no.
But there is a win from the diagram, eg 32.Kd2 Ke7 33.Kc3 Kd7 34.Kb3 Kc7 35.Ka4 Kb8 36.Kb5 Kb7 37.a3 h6 38.a4 h5 39.a5 bxa5 40.Kxa5 Ka7. Having forced an exchange of a pawn for b pawn, White can now return to pushing the d3 pawn: 41.Ka4 Kb6 42.Kb3 Kc7 (42...Ka5 does not help) 43.Kc3 Kb7 44.d4 Kc7 (44...cxd4+ 45.Kxd4 is followed by pushing the c4 pawn) 45.dxc5 dxc5 46.Kb3 Kb7 47.Ka4 Kb6 48.d6 etc.

Luck In Chess

THEORETICALLY chess is without luck - no dice are thrown, no cards are dealt and nothing is hidden from sight.
Model-soldier enthusiasts sometimes call wargaming "chess with a thousand pieces."
Chess players could equally call their hobby "wargaming without the luck."
But they never do, and the main reason is that in practice there are many forms of luck in chess.
A player flicks through an opening book at random the night before a big game, and next day his opponent walks right into the one line that has been prepared for him.
Or maybe during a game both players see a devastating move for Black, which is duly played to the joy of Black and the despair of White; but there turns out to be a flaw in both players' calculations and it is White who comes out on top.
I could give many more examples, but it has to be admitted all involve a degree of subjectivity.
This was brought home to me at Paisley, from where I returned yesterday after scoring +3=3-3 in the 125th Scottish Championship. That was good enough for a rating gain of 7.8 Fide elo.

Paisley High Kirk

I felt I deserved to have scored considerably less than I did, but during the tournament another English player, Robert Kane, came up to me and said he had been going over some of my games and felt I had been rather unlucky.
In particular he cited my round-four game against Irish FM David Fitzsimons.

Position after 19...Ng6-f4 in Spanton (1927) - Fitzsimons (2328)

White is doing fine here. True, the bishop is bad, but it is actively supporting White's play on the queenside, where White has more space and a target in Black's c7 pawn.
Now a move such as 20.Qc2 or 20.Qd1 would have served me well. Instead I fell into a trap which DS told me afterwards had, in a very similar position, ensnared Dutch GM Jan Timman in a game against England's Gawain Jones.
20.Qd2? N6xd5!
White must lose a pawn, the point being that 21.exd5?? Qg5 22.Bd3 Nh3+ costs White his queen.
I should have played something like 21.g3, and struggled on a pawn down. But I made matters much worse with …
21.Bc4? Qg5 22.Qa2? Nc3 23.Qb2 Nce2+! 0-1.
So, was I unlucky? RK thought so, but it has to be said that anyone who plays three question-mark moves in a row deserves all the "bad luck" he gets.

Paisley's former finishing mill, with Paisley Abbey in the background

The reason I felt I had a lucky tournament was games like my round-six encounter with Malaysian FM Zhuo Ren Lim.

Position after 37...Bb7-a8 in Lim (2167) - Spanton (1927)

 

I had been under the cosh almost the entire game, desperately defending my weaknesses at e6 and c6.
My last move (37...Bb7-a8) was designed to possibly allow a rook to go to a7, and to ensure that if White at some point exchanged light-square bishops, I would have hopes of counterplay down the a file.
But we had both seen White's next move …
38.b4 axb4 39.Bxb4 c5 40.Bxa8 Rxa8 41.dxc5 bxc5 42.Bc3
Analysis engines reckon the position is dead equal.
My next is perhaps not the best, but it proved good enough.
42...Ra4 43.Rxe6 Rxe6 44.Rxe6 Bf8 45.Qe2 Rxa2 46.Qxa2 Qxe6 47.Be5 Qc6+ 48.Kg1 Qe4 49.Kf2 Qh1 50.Ke3 Qe4+ 51.Kf2 Qh1 52.Ke3 Qh4+ ½-½
Going back to the diagram position, it seems Black's 38th deserves a question mark. Instead, he should play 38.Qd2 or 38.Bb2, or really almost anything non-forcing.
So, overall, did I have a lucky or unlucky Paisley? I still think the former … but then again, that is certainly subjective.