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Julien Swidurski

Conquering the NBSB: My Victory in the First Competition Match Against tough competition

In the first competition round of the NBSB evening competition 2024-2025 we now started with 2 teams instead of 1. On September 30th both teams played a home match in 't Hazzo, where Litho Knights A was facing HMC Den Bosch A and Litho Knights B was facing WLC C. Time control for the NBSB competition is 90 min + 15s.

(Grumpy boss pointing Ralf where to sit :P)

During this first match of the season on NBSB, I (Julien Swidurski 1650 Elo) played on 4th board with white pieces. Here is a short analysis of the game.


So we played a Sicilian Najdorf ( e4 c5 Nf3 d6 d4 cxd4 Nxd4 Nf6 Nc3 a6 ):

 As White I like to play the plan of the “English attack” which is similar of the Yugoslav attack on the Sicilian dragon.


I want to play Be3, then f3 and g4 and launch an attack on black king side. On those position we usually go to long castle and it is a race on who first mates his opponent. Good thing for white is that moves are quite easy to finds and blacks needs to be very creative, so in my humble opinion these positions are easier to play as white.

 

So I played Bf3 as planned and he played e5:

This moves force me to move my knight! The bad news is now d6 pawn is a bit wick so I want to play against d5 square so forbid the pawn to advance and then attack d6 and win a pawn! The big questions of these positions will often be : can black play d4 in good conditions, if they succeed they are in a better shape than white, otherwise they will lose a pawn.


Well I never remember where my knight should be here but I see 3 good options : Nb5, Nf3, and Nf5. Computer seems to prefer Nb5, but I went to Nf5 that I find more offensive and if he takes it with bishop, then I have won the bishop pair so I’m happy (I guess).


He then played Be6, I continue on my plan to attack king side so f3 :

With this move I forgive his knight to come to g4, and support the soon to come g4. And here is a good explanation on my first talk about the d5 square! Here black can play d5 and it is very painful to play for white! I cannot play exd5 cause I lose my knight in f5! But he is also threatening to play d4 forking the bishop and the knight!

 

So d5 is the good move for black but my opponent is, I think, too scared of my move g4 and want to forbit it! And plays h5:

Here I considered to play Qd2 to then long castle and pressure his d6 pawn, but I saw d5 is a good move! Considered also Bd3 to protect the knight and get rid of d4 threat! But in the end I chose Bg5:

I was not a big fan of this move as I move 2 times my bishop in the opening which break one rule of the openings ( develop your pieces, if you move a piece twice you basically lost a tempo)

 

But here I thought my Bishop cannot be kicked from this pinning position anymore, as normally we like to play h6 to attack, sadly for him he cannot do it! He cannot also unpin his knight by playing Be7 cause I take it with my knight. So the pin is here and hard to get rid of it! My Opponent played g6:

He attacks my knight that is very powerful! So here I would suggest you to think about this position and think about what is white best move, there is a nice tactical combination! You found It? Nxd6:

I here play against the queen that need to protect the Nf6 and d6! If he takes my knight with the bishop ( that’s how the game went) I play bishop take f6 attack the queen and the rook:

And when he takes my bishop with his queen then my queen takes his bishop in d5:

Alright! After all this mess what is remaining? I am a pawn up! But also my queen is very strong in center, forbidding him to castle, and his bishop cannot move as he would lose his queen! So black position is already quite desperate! He played Nc6:

He wants his rook to come and attack my queen so I cannot long castle because of this!

But so I found the last move of the game: Nd5! And this is game over!

Because bishop cannot take, I would take his queen! But in same time I am threatening Nc7, which is not just a fork wining the rook, but checkmate! Play Qd8 to defend it, I still play Nc7+ and you need to sacrifice the queen to stay alive!

 

Therefore my opponent resigned!

I later learned that he is a 1890 ELO player, so for my humble 1650 ELO this is quite a nice victory!


Where I was able to win quite quickly the rest of the teams was still playing and struggling. It seemed our Litho Knights B team was facing a very strong new team and in the end they lost with 0-4, which was nothing to be ashamed about looking at their opponents:

The rest of my team (Litho Knights A) has been fighting fiercely, but was in the end happy to end up at a 2-2 score. Not the best start of the season, but at least we have a match point in the pocket.


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