17 October 2010

Strategical vs. Tactical Openings

In The Seeds of Victory?, I analyzed the opening of a game between the co-winners of the SchemingMind 2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament. In this next post I'll look at a win by the loser of that previous game.

I discussed the format of the SchemingMind dropout tournaments in Pyramids and Dropouts. The current game was played in the last round of the 2009 event, where all four surviving players were on the verge of elimination. A loss in either of the two last round games would be curtains for that player. In this current game a draw for White would also mean instant elimination, while Black needed a win here and a draw in the other game, or vice versa. The bottom line was that both players were in a situation to play for a win.

The following diagram shows the game with Black to play his fourth move. The start position (SP880 BBRQKRNN), still visible in the diagram, has a curious symmetry. The royalty, located on the same center squares as in traditional chess, is flanked by the Rooks on the c- and f-files. The Bishops are on adjacent files, meaning also adjacent diagonals, on the Queenside, while the Knights are on adjacent files on the Kingside. The g- and h-Pawns are unprotected and subject to immediate attack by the Bishops. Castling O-O-O, to keep the King out of range of the opponent's Bishops, looks better than O-O.

During the first few moves, both players have been preoccupied with the safety of the Kingside Pawns, at the same time following a policy of development coupled with attention to the center. White has just played 4.Nhg3. Black could have continued similarly with 4...Ng6, but instead went into complications with 4...h5, threatening the enemy Knight. Unlike the game in the 'Seeds of Victory' post, which opened with strategical maneuvering by both players, the current game veered into tactical calculations, based on mutual shots against the Knights.

After a few more moves the game reached the position shown in the second diagram, where White has just castled O-O-O. It's hard to say who stands better. The swap of a center Pawn for the h-Pawn probably favors Black, but this sort of positional reckoning takes a back seat when tactical complications abound. The attacks on the Knights continued with 11...f5 12.f4, and Black eventually prevailed. Here again is the complete game score, courtesy of SchemingMind.

[Event "2009 Chess960 Dropout Tournament"]
[Site "SchemingMind.com"]
[Date "2010.07.29"]
[Round "6"]
[White "thebirdolux"]
[Black "wilfried"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Variant "fischerandom"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "bbrqkrnn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/BBRQKRNN w KQkq - 0 1"]

1.c4 Nf6 2.e4 c5 3.Ne2 e6 4.Nhg3 h5 5.b3 h4 6.e5 Ng4 7.Ne4 h3 8.Nf4 Nxe5 9.Nxh3 Qh4 10.Qe2 b6 11.O-O-O f5 12.f4 Qg4 13.Rfe1 Qxe2 14.Rxe2 Nc6 15.Bxg7 fxe4 16.Bxf8 Nd4 17.Re3 Kxf8 18.Bxe4 Bxe4 19.Rxe4 Ke7 20.Rh1 Nf7 21.g3 b5 22.d3 Rh8 23.Nf2 Bc7 24.Ree1 Ba5 25.Ref1 Nd6 26.cxb5 N6xb5 27.Ne4 d5 28.Ng5 Ne2+ 0-1

Once again, it's not immediately clear why White resigned in the final position. White has a Rook and two Pawns for a Bishop and a Knight, but Black's minor pieces are swarming around White's King. I imagine that a detailed analysis would show imminent material loss for White.

1 comment:

HarryO said...

Hi there
Yeah another really interesting late game. The last played move 28...Ne2+ is really deep. The computer doesn't even see why it works for any practical amount of time.

The position is characterized by some really odd 960 remnants. Optically you would think that black's king attack is dangerous, but that there should be enough counter play on the kingside pawn push for white to draw. It's really a tricky situation. Under no circumstances should white assist black to pressure his king because white has no tempo to spare! Unfortunately for white, in the game I think white played one blunder under serious pressure, that did exactly what he should not do.

So we get:
28) ...Ne2+
29) Kc2[]...Nbd4+ looks even worse but white has Kb1. Problem is that white has assisted black in opening up the b-file by exchanging pawns back at move 26) allowing black's rook to join in the attack on the king's protection on b1 in some variations.
30) Kb1[]...c4 opening up the d-file for the rook as well as a partially open b-file.
31) dxc4[]...dxc4
32) Nf3[] white has had a series of forced moves and now dies by Zugswang for the next sequence of moves. Black takes the d-file with the rook, and now there are serious mating threats. If white tries to counter attack on the d-file, black has a knight fork resource Nc3+ winning material.

The one totally out of character blunder in the game that I can find is:

26) cxb5? what looks to be a simple blunder but actually white is under huge pressure so you can understand it. However on simple grounds it looks wrong optically. The b-file must not be voluntarily opened to black's rook, lest white's king protection at b1 starts to suffer. This move only helps black to attack white's king. I can only guess that white hoped that he could shut black down on the queenside and centre and start a kingside attack but:

26) ...N6xb5
27) Ne4...hoping for a stable position for his knight there and forcing ...d6 but:
28) ...d5! and c5 cannot be captured.

In these situations, if something looks really optically bad, we must look for some special counter attacking resource to save us. If there isn't one then we die. In this case there was one! It was a knight fork white has on e5. White needed to push his only hope first!:

26) Ng4...beginning his own pressure on the kingside and suggesting a tactical fork resource that actually saves the day.
26) ...N6f5 or other waiting type moves. What does black play now if white does not give him the b-file unless black expends his own tempo to do so?
27) Ne5...a tactical fork threat that helps push black's pieces out of coordination.
27) ...Rb8 bringing the rook into a king attack plan perhaps.
28) Rf2! now we get white's defense that he needs. Ne2+ isn't possible, the ...d5 push isn't possible and white will transition his knight to f3 with success this time! The b-file was never voluntarily opened by white.
28) ... d6
29) Nf3[] white's king's have safe squares and if the d-file opens, black's centre attack will be balanced by white's kingside push. Always in every variation, white must not play the game move cxb5.

Thanks for the post. One day I will start to study these Chess960 openings instead of all the final positions! There is so much in these games!