Saturday 6 March 2010

Lightning strikes twice

In round 4 of the 2010 ACT Championship, Milan Grcic played an anti-Pirc line that involved Be3 and Qd2. His opponent attempted to exploit this by playing Ng4 to attack the dark squared bishop. After the bishop headed to g5 it was hit by h6. But rather than retreat the bishop, Grcic attacked the knight instead, to open the h file. He then shifted his knight to g5, followed it up with Q to the h file, and it was all over in 15 moves!

Grcic,Milan (1772) - Bonning,James (1626) [B08]
2010 ACT Championship Canberra (4.5), 28.02.2010

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.d4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be3 0-0 6.Qd2 Ng4 7.Bg5 h6 8.h3 Nxf2 9.Qxf2 hxg5 10.Nxg5 e5 (D)
11.Qh4 Re8 12.Bc4 Be6 13.Qh7+ Kf8 14.Nxe6+ fxe6 15.0-0+ Bf6 1-0


Amazingly in round 6 of the tournament his opponent tried the same idea, got hit with the same reply, and although he varied from the round 4 game (7. ... f6 instead of 7. ... h6) this only resulted in the game finishing in 12 moves!

Grcic,Milan (1722) - Derwent,Ethan (1330) [B08]
2010 ACT Championship Canberra (6.3), 06.03.2010

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Be3 0-0 6.Qd2 Ng4 7.Bg5 f6 8.Bc4+ Kh8 9.h3 fxg5 10.hxg4 e5 11.Nxg5 exd4 12.Rxh7# 1-0

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show that one needs an opening system regardless of one's rating.
With these twin miniatures, white became known and would be triple lucky if he could effect the same method against suspecting (this time) opponent.
Just the same congratulations to the winner.