Hacking the Slav

The Russia v China match is taking place as I post this, and I have been receiving updates courtesy of Chess Today. In yesterdays issue they featured the following game, where Evgeny Alekseev cleaned up Zhang Pengxiang in 17 moves.

Alekseev,E (2689) - Zhang Pengxiang (2649) [D25]
IV RUS-CHN Match Nizhniy Novgorod RUS (6), 26.08.2007

1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 c6 3.c4 dxc4 4.e3 Be6 5.Nc3 Nf6 6.Ng5 Qc8 7.a4 a5 8.e4 h6 9.Nxe6 Qxe6 10.e5 Nbd7 11.Be2 Nd5 12.0-0 N7b6 13.Bg4 Qg6 14.e6 Nf6 15.Bh3 Qd3 16.Qe1 0-0-0 17.Qe5 1-0

The key manoeuvre was 14.e6! which reminded me of a game where I hacked into a Slav, with similar results. It was played at a time when I gauged the success of a tournament by the number of pieces I sacrificed, rather than the score I ended up on.

Press,S - OBrien,R [D15]
ACT-ch Canberra, 1993

1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Nc3 dxc4 5.e4 b5 6.e5 Nd5 7.Be2 Bg4 8.Ne4 Nd7 9.Nfg5 Bxe2 10.Qxe2 h6 (D)
11.e6 hxg5 12.exf7+ Kxf7 13.Nxg5+ Ke8 14.Qe6 Qb6 15.Qf7+ Kd8 16.Ne6+ Kc8 17.Qe8+ Kb7 18.Qxd7+ Ka6 19.Nc5+ Ka5 20.Bd2+ b4 21.a3 Kb5 22.axb4 Nxb4 23.Bxb4 Kxb4 24.Ra4+ Kb5 25.Ra6 Qxa6 26.Nxa6 Kxa6 27.Qxc6+ Ka5 28.Qxa8 1-0