Danger Game

My round 2 game in Teamleague 38 was a danger game for several reasons. I had the Black pieces against a lower rated opponent (the first time I've had a lower rated opponent in any Teamleague game), and looking at his history through the WatchBot site he's improving rapidly - by about 100 points in the last couple of months. Further, he has an excellent record playing Queen's Pawn openings with the White pieces.



I'd first wanted to play the freeing ... Ne4 manoeuver at move 8 but decided Bf4 was a good response and wanted to get my King tucked away first. At move 11 I had another long look at it (more than 12 minutes) only to find I still can't analyse very well, and wondering about Bxe7, Bxe4, with Ne5. As is evidenced by the lack of posts on the subject, I haven't done much work on "thinking like a Grandmaster" lately! In the end I was wasting too much time looking (or should I say "staring blankly") at it and ended up with the attitude "play it and be damned!". If it was wrong my opponent would have to spot a trick I hadn't seen, and there's always the hope that given the time I'd spent he'd trust me that I had it all worked out. Chess at this level has far too much in common with poker.

As it happens, Rybka is happy to play ... Ne4 at moves 9, 10, or 11, but starts looking at other things with deeper analysis.

I was happy to see 14. e4, as I thought that both the exchanges and pressure on the isolated Queen's Pawn could only improve my game. It only remained to get my Bishop and Rook into the game to be certain I was fully equal at the least, and after some to-ing and fro-ing with the Queen I succeeded in this.

20. ... Qf6 was my first tangible threat of the game and although my opponent permitted Bxh3 at the next move I decided against it because after gxh3 Qxf3, Re7 I've given up my defense of f7 and the Rook is established on my second rank to start chewing through my pawns. Instead I chose ... Rd8 with the idea of ... Rxd4 with mating threats if the Rook came to e7, or to work on the d4 pawn if he defended the Bxh3 threat. Rybka coldly snaps off the h3 pawn on move 21 with the Rook still at a8 and advantage to Black, but I'm happy with my decision to develop and build the pressure, and more so for the promising sign of having looked further than the obvious combination to see if there was a sting in the tail.

At around moves 23-30, I found myself in a unique situation for me in Teamleague. I'm a solid pawn up in a good position and I only have to find a suitable plan to bring home the full point - those over-extended White Queen side pawns look the likely target. On the downside, I'm playing on my 45 second increments after all that wasted time in the opening. The general purpose ... h6 and repeating positions were obviously not optimal moves, but gained time on the clock while I steeled myself to play 30. ... Re8.

Playing moves like 30. ... Re8 cause me deep psychological trauma. Moving a piece from an apparently well protected square where it's putting pressure on a significant weakness in the opposing camp into a self-pin on an unprotected square seems contrary to all general principles of good play. But that is the point. General principles are subordinate to specific considerations. With the Rook on d8 I can't take the Queen side pawns with the Queen because White has the removal of defender combination Rxe6! winning a piece.

3 pawns up my opponent spared me playing out the Queen ending with the pseudo-resignation of allowing mate-in-1, but with 2 or 3 outside passed pawns and a protected King, even I should be able to find a win there.

With the match score standing at 1-1, both our new lads (HyperMagnus and gambiitii) have White in their games. HyperMagnus is "threatening" to play bizarre and obscure openings in his games. I for one am all for it, I still don't believe knowning opening theory is an advantage below master level, and I don't think players at this level can really refute 'unsound' openings - certainly not ones they're not familiar with, and not over the board.