Updating my traps

Inspired by the FIDE Trainers course I sat in on last week, I've been updating some of my opening files. One such file is my collection of opening traps, which up until now has been based on my collection of Reinfeld and Pandolfini books dating back a number of years. While it is slow going I have found a few interesting games, including the following in what is usually an equalising line in the Danish Gambit.


Vospernik,Andrej (2150) - Ladanyi,Gyula (2037) [C21]
Budapest FS05 FM Budapest (2), 2002

Straight up the chimney

The phenomenon of beginners moving their rook pawns in the opening is pretty well known. The Ian Rout theory of left handers moving the pawn on that side of the board has been observed on a number of occasions, by me, but h4 is often followed up with a4 as well.
The following game is both an example, and a warning. In all honesty it isn't the type of game I normally put on my blog, but it did have one other point of interest. After I had won a couople of pieces, I wasn't really surprised when my opponent played Ke2. Of course Bd2 is the right move, but when you are first taught chess, "you have to get out of check" is often heard as "you have to move your king out of check". And once the king went to e2, it had to go to e3, then e4 before getting mated on e5.


Junior - Press,Shaun [A00]
Casual, 02.03.2020

The crazy big centre

In a follow up to an earlier post about failing to push both the e and d pawns, here is a recent game where Black gets steamrolled by White's big centre. The opening is "almost" a Grunfeld, but the move order meant that Black had no opportunity to trade knights on c3. As a result the pawn centre has grater mobility, and after only 10 moves, Black is almost lost.


Thybo,Jesper Sondergaard (2592) - Scheidegger,U (1741) [A15]
19th Burgdorf Open 2020 Burgdorf SUI (1.3), 14.02.2020

Go hard, then go home

You never want to be the first game to finish at the start of an important event, unless you win of course. So trying a somewhat dubious opening can be a risk, especially if an unexpected reply catches you off guard. This unfortunately happened to Bevan Clouston in the first round of the 2020 Australian Championship Reserves, where the Englund Gambit went off the rails, and he ended up resigning on move 10.


Raichle, Joerg - Clouston, Bevan
2020 Australian Championship Reserves, 2020.01.02

How many mistakes?

GM John Nunn thought you needed to make 3 mistakes in the opening to lose quickly as White, and 2 mistakes to lose if you were Black. The following game is certainly a quick loss for White, although what the real mistakes were is open to debate.
10.c3 was definitely one, as Blacks next move showed. I'd also point the finger of blame at 9.Na4 although at that point White was already running out of good moves. And while I didn't think exchanging on c6 was correct, following it up with 6.d4 was the first real mistake. After 6...Ba6 White had a problem with getting the king to safety, and the rest of the game was about exploiting this fact.


Radisich,Matt - Press,Harry [B30]
Street Chess, 16.11.2019

The Fifty-Percenter

This recent miniature from the Belt and Road tournament in China, is an example of what is known as the 'Fifty-Percenter'. Black tries a sharp attacking idea which only leaves him with a totally lost position. At this point normal moves do not work, so he tries one last trick, with 15... Qg1+ Now if chess was a game where moves were chosen randomly, then there is a 50% chance that 16.Rxg1?? would be played. As it isn't (well for most of us anyway), White chose 16.Kxg1 and Black resigned.


Ganguly,Surya Shekhar (2638) - Wei,Yi (2737) [A33]
Belt and Road Hunan Op A Changsha CHN (5.2), 02.08.2019

The cleverest move

One of the things that makes chess interesting is how (and why) we choose our moves. After assessing the position and coming up with a plan, we select the best move that fits our plan. And in a perfect world this would mean we never make a mistake, and every game of chess would end in a draw.
In practice we often choose a move that we think is pretty clever, and usually it is. But sometimes it is a move that we think is clever, that gets undone by a move that is cleverer. One such example occurred in the following brevity from the 2019 ANU Open. White thought they were winning a pawn or even a piece, only to walk into a checkmate!


White - Black
ANU Minor Canberra, 28.07.2019

If grabbing the b pawn is bad ....

Grabbing the b pawn with your queen is considered one of the cardinal sins in the opening (Bobby Fischer notwithstanding), so how bad is grabbing the a pawn?
Examples of this sin are not that common, but here is a recent game where Black did this and lost horribly. As to whether the blame can solely be attributed to the pawn grab, (or neglecting the centre, not developing, and failing to castle) is an exercise left to the reader.


Dreev,A (2657) - Loiacono,Antonio (2317) [D02]
10th Dolomiti Open 2019 Forni di Sopra ITA (2.2), 16.06.2019

The big centre

Having pawns on e4 and d4 is considered advantageous, especially when they aren't being directly challenged. But eventually you do have to do something with them. The following miniature is an example of White using the pawns to gain space, and then material, when Black chooses the wrong move.

Stefansson,Vignir Vatnar (2291) - Leosson,Atli Johann (1790) [D10]
Icelandic Open 2019 Akureyri ISL (1.10), 25.05.2019

Secrets of Opening Shockers

New in Chess have a series of books called Secrets of Opening Surprises. If I remember correctly one of the SOS chapters dealt with 3.Bd3 in the French. It was given as a 'not so bad' variation that could unsettle your opponent.
Whether the player with the white pieces in the following game had read about Bd3 in SOS I cannot say. But if he did, he may have wanted to read a few more pages before wheeling it out.


Bergin,Cian (1512) - Farrelly,Eoin (1644) [C00]
Irish International Open Dublin IRL (7.41), 21.04.2019

Hitting the self destruct button

I suspect we've all played games where we've blundered quite early on. Usually this is dropping a pawn (or a piece in a few of my efforts), but it is pretty rare to allow a mating attack starting on move 4. In this game from the current European Championship I suspect Black thought that 3... h6 would prevent 4.Ng5, but he missed the far stronger followup.

Trajkovski,Mile (2105) - Bytyqi,Gzim (1994) [B00]
20th ch-EUR Indiv 2019 Skopje MKD (6.169), 24.03.2019

Fortune favours the insane

In the collection of "how to get an early draw by repetition" games, the following game figures prominently. Played before Karpov became a world class player, Igor Zaitsev bravely sacrificed his queen, but had enough to force a draw by repetition on move 15. In fact there was an even earlier draw available,  starting with 6.Kxf7 7.Qh5+
Since then the game has been played multiple times, with all but 2 games ending in a draw (in my database anyway). Curiously, the 2 non drawn games follow an early recommendation of playing 10 ... Ne5+ 11.Rxe5 Be6 which was assessed unclear in the pre-computer era, but is simply better for Black according to Stockfish. However in the actual games it was one win for each colour, with the White winner being David Smerdon in 1999, after IM Stephen Solomon misplayed the attack on White's King.


Zaitsev,Igor A - Karpov,Anatoly [C43]
Leningrad Leningrad (10), 1966

Pin and Win

"Pin and win" is a fairly common piece of advice given to young players. And when it works, the game can be over quite quickly. Here is an example from a junior event I was directing today.


Pinned - Winned [C50]
03.03.2019

Small push x 2

I really need to get back to my 1 post a day routine, as I fear I am slipping in keeping this blog relevant. To help me do this, I've decided to look through games from current and recently finished events, looking to find interesting or quirky games. 

The one I have found for today's post is probably in the quirky category, as black does something I'm not sure I have seen that often. On two separate occasions he pushes a pawn one square (instead of 2) but then completes the two square push on the following move. The first pawn he does this with is the e pawn, and he then repeats the idea with the h pawn. The apparent loss of tempo doesn't seem to hurt, as it is another push of the h pawn that brings the game to a sudden finish.

Golikov,Daniil (2278) - Gorshtein,Ido (2384) [A18]
48th Rilton Cup 2018-19 Stockholm SWE (8.26), 04.01.2019

The Anti Fort Knox?

The 'Fort Knox' variation in the Frence Defence involved Black planting a bishop on c6 early in the game. While I've never considered the variation that ambitious (or dangerous for White), it does appeal to French Defence players who stress the second word in the opening's name.
As I was flicking through the games from the last 4NCL season, I came across a nice win for White, in what looked like a mirror image of the Fort Knox. After 3.Bd3 White planted his bishop on f3. It was then Black who went pawn hunting (taking on g2, when a lot of French lines have Qxg7) allowing White to build up a decisive lead in development. Avoiding the loss of a rook only led to Black getting mated instead.


Ivell,Nicholas W (2201) - Lee,Richard W Y (2149) [C00]
4NCL 2017-18 England ENG (9.65), 05.05.2018

The Champion of Kazan

The title of this post does not refer to the Australian Football Team (or indeed the French), but to IM Rashid Nezhmetdinov, who lived in the Russian city which is currently a host city for the 2018 World Cup.
I've waxed lyrical in the past about how good Nezhmetdinov was, and watching the World Cup this evening gives me another excuse to present one of his games. This one is over pretty quickly, as White panics after 10...Bxg2 and avoids capturing the bishop. As a result Black gets in a queen check on h4, and after that  smothered mate.


Samsonov - Nezhmetdinov,Rashid [C29]
Kazan-ch Kazan, 1929

Seriously, this happened

From the 'there is hope for us all' file, here is a very quick game where a 2150 player falls for a trap I assumed almost every player of the French Defence knows about. The only thing I can add, is it is almost an injustice that the rating points go to a 2400 player, rather than some lucky 1600 opponent.


Diaz,Rid (2435) - Garcia Fuentes,Sergio Miguel (2158) [C10]
Guillermo Garcia Master 1 Santa Clara CUB (9.5), 31.05.2018

The Bh6, h4 hack

The kingside hack against fianchettoed bishop is a bit of a double edged sword. On the surface it looks appealing, but it can back fire. I had the chance to successfully play it last night, but when looking up the theory on it, the position after White's 9th move only scores around 40%. In my game I was certainly helped by 9... Qa5 but if my opponent had chosen something like 9...Bxh6 instead, then I would have had a lot more work to do.


Press,Shaun - Hosking,Ian [B26]
Autumn Leaves, 29.05.2018

And the assist goes to the goalie

When I was very young, I spent a season of soccer playing goalie. I kind of fell into it, as no one else was keen to take on the role, although it took me a while to work out why. As far as I can remember I was pretty good at it, especially when diving at the feet of over eager centre forwards trying to go round me. However in the final game of the Port Moresby Under 10's I did concede the vital goal that gave the title to Korobosea Primary, instead of my team. After that I gave up goalkeeping (mainly due to a move to a new team in Australia), and for the next few seasons scored goals rather than conceding them.
Of course accidents happen, even to seasoned professionals. The Champions League Final between Real Madrid and Liverpool is the current example, with Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius, having a bit of a shocker. But even seasoned GM's can get it wrong at the board, especially if they miscount captures. GM Deep Sengupta did exactly that in the Kolkatta Open, when he assumed that recaptures would only happen one way. Instead he realised at move 10 that his opponent could capture in a different way (11. cxd7+ Nxd7!) and whatever happened next, he was dropping a piece.


Sengupta,Deep - Narayanan,Srinath [D00]
Kolkatta, 05.2018

Two Famous Actors

While flicking through 365 Chess Master Lessons by Andrew Soltis, I came across a game between two famous actors, Michael Redgrave and John Steadman. Looking a the date it was played (2007) and the venue (Sydney) I immediately figured something wasn't quite right, as Sir Michael Redgrave had died in 1985, and John Steadman passed away in 1993.
It turned out that the surnames of the players had been transposed, and the two participants were in fact Michael Steadman (NZ) and John Redgrave (AUS) who had met in the first round of the 2007 Sydney International Open. Soltis features the game as part of a lesson on when is the optimal time to play a move. In the game, 9.Nd5 was strong, and made even stronger by 9...Bb7??, although 9.a4 was even stronger, as it sets up some extra tactics for White. After Steadman found the knockout blow with 10.Ne6! there wasn't much left for Black.


Steadman,Michael - Redgrave,John [B94]
SIO, 2007