In the first round of the NBSB competition we started with a number of veterans in the team to allow for a "shock and awe" effect for our opponents. This seemed to work, as this round our opponents were already under the impression, they were going to get slaughtered by us, as their average rating was quite a bit lower. However, as it is our aim to also have fun and allow for all club members to get the chance to play in our competition matches, we now brought quite some fresh blood. This means that only Ralf has a FIDE and KNSB rating, but Pepijn and Nuwan don't have a rating yet and Julien hasn't been playing over the board since a long time. Below you can find the analysis of Julien's game:
During the match between Litho Chess played against RDS B, I (Julien Swidurski 1250 Elo) played on 4th board with black pieces. Here is a short analysis of the game.
The time control was 90 min + 15s.
I played the Petrov defense, but we ended up in a 4 Knight game.
In this position the best is to play Nxe4, Nxe4 and d5 to win the piece back:
Sadly, I didn’t remember this little trick (special thanks to my brain, I finally remembered I could do it on my way back to home so at a useless time!)
On the board I took some time to think about the position because I now have a weak f7 pawn that can be attacked with Ng5 so I decided to play h6 to prevent it! not ideal as it weaken a bit my kingside if I want to Castle. But again, on the board I didn’t find any better solution to counter the Ng5 threat.
Here my opponent was concerned about pinning his knight, but I was happy with this move as now I have some ideas of sacrificing the bishop and opening his king or some g5 then g4.
To get to this I need my bishop in e6 and queen in d7 and as his white bishop is preventing it, I decided to play Na5 to take it.
So, the next follow the plan: Be2, Nxc4, dxc4, Qd7, Rfd1:
In this position I spent a lot of time thinking about the sacrifice in h3! taking in account I could take advantage of f2 being pinned and my knight that can come to g4! Sadly, I couldn’t find any strong attack and at any time he can play Be3, and the pin is gone, and I don’t have any attack left.
I decided to play long castle as my idea is to attack his king and so as the sacrifices seems difficult let's send the g pawn to open his defense.
I saw that his rook his looking dangerously toward my queen but as the bishop was blocking, I thought that I would have the time to move the queen if he move his bishop (Big mistake!)
And so, he played the very unpleasant Be3 that I saw to counter my attack, but I didn’t consider it as is X).
And this is a big issue, d7 is pinned by the rook so I need to move that bishop, but he also has Nxe4! Win a pawn and attack my queen.
In order to keep my pawn structure, I decided to exchange the bishop! I was sure the queen needed to stay at the defense of c4 so he would play fxe3 but no:
Qxe3 and then he threatens to take a7 that is an even worse situation I need to prevent and therefore need to allow Nxe4… I tried to remain optimistic as I still see a good attack on his king so being a pawn down is not that terrible (optimistic!), so my plan was play Kb8 to protect a7 and on Nxe4 move the Q either to c8 to hide the queen or go in e8 to prevent any Nc6+ that completely open my king.
But my opponent played c5! I was not very impressed by this threat and so as I’m here for blood I decided to play g5 and launch my attack and if he plays now Nxe4 then I move my queen, he needs to move his knight back and I can then play g4 to open the position!
Well, that was my thinking, Stockfish strongly disagrees with my statement!
But when I played g5, my opponent answered by g4:
So, to continue opening his defense I played h4 thinking that Qxg5 place his queen dangerously and allow me to attack it with a rook and then I would have a very strong attack. But when it appeared on the board, I thought of hxg4 that counterattack his knight:
And then it is a big mess! But seems critical for white now his king is wide open, his queen is badly positioned and if he plays the only reasonable move to me: Qxf6 then gxf3 Qxf3 then I thought of attacking his queen with Rxh3 and then attack the king! But he could always leave through f1.
My opponent played this variant, and instead of playing now Rxh3 I thought of the cute Bxh3 that block the f1 square and so his king is now trapped:
My first thought was to play Rdg8+ and then as the king has to come to h column play Bg4+ and win the queen!
But I found out that playing Bf1+ is even stronger as the mate cannot be prevented and so from last position the game finished by Rd3, Rdg8+, Kh2, Bf1+, Qf3, Rxf3, Rxf3, Qxf3 checkmate:
I was the first one to be done with my game. Quickly after Pepijn got a draw against his opponent. His game was kind of uneventful and was traded down to a endgame where both had a rook and quite some pawns. For neither one there was a decent way to create some movement.
On a personal level that was not the most precise game ever and I should not have underestimate that dangerous pin with my queen! But on the attack side I am happy with the moves I found!
It than took quite some time for Ralf to finish. In his game he played some inaccurate moves in the opening. He played the Evans gambit, but was forced to trade of his white bishop, so the attack was somewhat gone. After that he however started to build up pressure, which led to material compensation as he could get a rook for his other bishop. After some long maneuvering he was able to convert the material advantage into a win.
With already 2.5 points for us, we had won the match, but Nuwan was still playing. During the middle game he lost a pawn and later on a piece. So, it was going to be quite a fight to see if he could get a draw out of it. Unfortunately, his opponent didn't make any mistakes and after a while Nuwan had to resign as there was nothing left.
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