Miniatures 2

IN this occasional series I am going through my decisive games of 20 moves or fewer.

Spanton - A Cooper*

Yorkshire League 1979

Spanish Berlin

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6

Very modern play for 1979!

4.0-0 Be7

Nowadays 4...Nxe4 is all the rage.

5.Re1 a6?

This blunders a pawn. Normal is 5...d6.

6.Ba4?

Well, it should have blundered a pawn. Amusingly the text is the commonest continuation in ChessBase's 2025 Mega database, but 6.Bxc6 dxc6 7.Nxe5 leaves Black with no compensation for being a pawn down as 7...Qd4 is simply met by 8.Nf3.

6...b5 7.Bb3

The game has transposed to a hardcore Spanish position occurring 94,646 times in Mega25

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7...0-0 8.c3 d5!?
The Marshall Attack, aka the Marshall Gambit.

Black scores an excellent 52% with 8...d5!?

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9.d4!?

Stockfish17 and Dragon1 prefer accepting the gambit with 9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5, but the text has been played by Magnus Carlsen, and scores 10 percentage points better in Mega25.

9...exd4

Also popular are 9...dxe4 and 9...Nxe4, but the text is the main line.

10.e5 Ne8?!

Almost certainly better is 10...Ne4.

11.cxd4 Be6 12.Nc3 Na5 13.Bc2 c5!?

The engines prefer this over the known move 13...Rac8.

14.Be3?!

The engines give 14.dxc5!? Bxc5, and possibly 15.Bg5, claiming White is positionally winning.

14...Nc4

The engines like 14...c4!?

15.Qd3!?

Black to play and lose

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15...Nxb2?? 16.Qxh7#
*Apart from the fact my opponent came from York, I have no further details. He probably had a grade, but I did not record it, and I do not think I had one.

LESSON: 15...Nxb2?? is the result of focusing on one's own threats, instead of considering what the opponent might do. Instead 15...g6 would have left White with only a slight edge, according to the engines.

Champion Of Champions (part eight)

HERE is the tournament bracket after seven matches.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v----------------------------Kramnik
14. Kramnik (+12)

5. Euwe
v----------------------------Karpov
12. Karpov (+11.5)

7. Smyslov (+18)
v----------------------------Smyslov
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v----------------------------
2. Lasker

Round of 16
Match Eight: Anand v Lasker
Game One
Vishy Anand - Emanuel Lasker
Spanish Berlin
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 Nf6
This should be interesting. Lasker was something of a loner among top players of his time in playing the Berlin, while today Anand is regarded as one of the experts at playing against it.
4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 Be7
Lasker preferred this to the 5...Nd6 of the Berlin Wall.
6.Qe2 Nd6 7.Bxc6 bxc6 8.dxe5 Nb7 9.Nc3
Anand has reached the position after 8...Nb7 twice in ChessBase's 2020 Mega database, once playing the text and once playing 9.Re1. Since he drew with the latter but won with 9.Nc3, it is 9.Nc3 that is chosen on tiebreak.
9...0-0 10.Re1 Nc5 11.Nd4
Anand has played the text once, winning, and 11.Be3 once, drawing.
11...Ne6 12.Nxe6

Lasker never faced 12.Nxe6

I thought Anand-Lasker would be an intriguing match, but I did not expect a 'game' to get this deep.
Stockfish11 and Komodo11.01 give Anand an averaged advantage of just +4.5.
On the face of it that makes Lasker favourite to progress to the quarter-finals.

Game Two
Emanuel Lasker - Vishy Anand
Spanish Marshall Attack
1.e4 e5
This is preferred to 1...c5 by Anand in Mega20 by 347 games to 310.
2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7
Anand has preferred this to 5...Nxe4 by 40 games to 33.
6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 0-0 8.c3 d5
This should be fun.
9.exd5 Nxd5 10.Nxe5 Nxe5 11.Rxe5 c6

Again we have got quite some way into a game, but Lasker did not face 11...c6

The engines' averaged evaluations give Lasker an advantage of +55, making him an easy match winner.
Here is the updated bracket at the end of the round of 16.

Round of 16               Quarter-Finals
1. Steinitz
v----------------------------Carlsen
16. Carlsen (+102.5)

8.Tal (+8.5)
v----------------------------Tal
9.Petrosian

6. Botvinnik (+66)
v----------------------------Botvinnik
11. Fischer

13. Kasparov
v----------------------------Alekhine
4. Alekhine (+21.5)

3. Capablanca
v----------------------------Kramnik
14. Kramnik (+12)

5. Euwe
v----------------------------Karpov
12. Karpov (+11.5)

7. Smyslov (+18)
v----------------------------Smyslov
10. Spassky

15. Anand
v----------------------------Lasker
2. Lasker (+50.5)

Some statistics:
*Five of the eight round-of-16 matches were won by the earlier world champion;
*The average winning margin was +36.3;
*Carlsen had the biggest winning margin (102.5), Tal the smallest (8.5);
*Lasker and Carlsen are the only champions in the quarterfinals who are neither Russian or Soviet.