We've played a number of rounds in the KNSB competition by the now and things are looking quite good. So far we've manage to only draw against Dubbelschaak, but in round 5 we now were facing HMC 5 which is our other main competitor for this season. Upfront we didn't realize that their team was apparently not at full strength, so we assumed it would become quite a battle. On paper the end score looked quite straightforward and even on the low side. On the board we had quite some intense battles and half way through I was actually wondering if we would be able to make it.
My own game was quite a convincing one this time to be honest. In the opening I was able to gain some pressure.. . kept that going... won a pawn... more pressure... another pawn... trading pieces... end game... over :D. Ok, the summary is a bit to simple, so walk a bit through the game itself ;).
I was playing the Black lion and in the variation with 4. f4, you are as white presented with the question whether you take with the Queen or Knight. most often they take with the Queen, but this time he took with a knight. After 6. ..., g6, the development is quite straightforward, but as white played 7. Be3, I wanted to get all up on his face from the beginning. So I continued with 7. ...., Nc5. This way the e4 pawn is attacked twice and if you want to defend with Bd3, I will trade that one of.
Now white plays 8. e5, which I did expect, but was going to cost me some time to figure out how to best take advantage of this. As said, I wanted to build pressure. Trading first with 8. ..., dxe5 was of course an option (and what the engine says I should have played), but then my knight on c5 would be undefended if at some point I would play Bg7. Also I wanted to see if I could bring my queen to h4 or bishop to h6. So, I first played 8. ... Ng4 to build some more pressure. This was followed by 9. Qd2. Better would have been Qf3 as you would attack the knight on g4, have some pressure on f7 and avoid the h6-c1 diagonal with your queen.
I was again wondering about move order. It also looked attractive to play dxe5, Qh4+, Qh5 or something like that. However, I liked Bh6 as white can't castle long yet, as f4 is now pinned and I can play dxe5. It wouldn't be directly winning, but I figured it would lead me to a plus. White now played 10. Nf3, attacking the knight on c5, which means I can't take yet on e5 and also taking would lead to trading the queens while losing a tempo. Nonetheless 10. ..., Ne6 seems to solve all of those problems while increasing pressure on f4 even further. You now need to play 11. g3 to defend the f4 pawn and with the f4 pawn pinned and the queen on d8 protected by the knight I can now go for dxe5.
Still the position is equal for now, although I think I would still have a plus. White should have started exchanging all of the pieces to have a chance still with 12. Nxe5, Qxd2+ 13. Bxd2, Nxe5 14. fxe5, Bxd2+ 15. Kxd2, Bd7 followed by me castling long and white having an isolated center pawn on e5 which will be targeted. He chose however for trading the queens right away, which was the beginning of the end I think. After 12. Qxd8+, Nxd8 13. Bd2, exf4 14. 0-0-0, I am at least 1 pawn up. white can take on f4 and trade pieces, but then his f4 pawn would be isolated and doesn't make the position much better. In the below position I can't play Nf2 by the way, due to Re1+, so I first went to castle short myself as well.
White continued after my castling with 15. Re1, which is a logical move and now I needed to get my pieces out as soon as possible. I'm up 1,5 pawn, but my back rank is still full of pieces that need to get out to not lose my advantage, so first Ne6 to protect the c7 pawn/field from Nb4/Nd4.
After 16. h3 I had 2 directions I could go in, forward with Ne3 or backward with Nf6. Although forward looked alluring as well I chose to go to f6. I figured the pawn on f4 was protected enough for now, the knight on f6 would help fight off the Nc3 also and I didn't see exactly how to move forward with the pawn on e3 (should the knight get traded).
My opponent made it easy for me though, as after I played Nf6 he continued with 17. Ne2. I can now play Ne4, which allows me to keep the 2nd pawn with a good pawn structure, trade of some light pieces and finish my development of the back rank in a few moves. So basically this meant the game was over.
So, now my rooks are connected, I can start occupying the d-file, hopefully trade of more pieces even and march till the end of the board. Skipping ahead a lot in the game now as it was taking quite some moves, but not much time as from here it was very straightforward. The final key concept I would say of the game, to avoid any counterplay was cutting of the king from the pawns with Re4+.
Now the king can't reach the pawns anymore and my king can just support them till the end. The full game can be found at the bottom of the post... as I now found I can embed the games as well....
Oh, yes, and with regards to the eyes.. that was aimed at where we currently are in the competition. We won the 5th round with 5.5 - 2.5 and with that we only lost 1 matchpoint so far. This means that for us (with 2 more rounds to go) we are steadily aiming for the championship in our first season.
