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#18555 by Vahid Alimohamadi

16:03, January 01, 2017 by Vahid Alimohamadi

[pgn] [Event "North American Open 2016"] [Site "Bally's Casino, Las Vegas Nevada"] [Date "2016.12.29"] [Round "7"] [White "jughandle10"] [Black "a worthy enemy"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A84"] [WhiteElo "1593"] [BlackElo "1698"] [Annotator "jughandle10"] [PlyCount "139"] d4 d5 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 c6 4. cxd5 exd5 5. Nc3 f5 {This is apparently a playable move. I had never seen it in a slow game before, and was already out of book. I spent a while here trying to figure out the merits and if I could punish it directly in short order. After a 5 minute think I just decided to play normal chess moves.} 6. Bf4 Nf6 7. Qc2 Be7 8. e3 {My opponent was already using quite a bit of time, starting on move 2 even. Time control was 2 hours for the first 40 moves but there was also a 30 second delay so you basically had almost 3:30 per move. Here I am trying to make Nbd7 hard to play.} Ne4 9. Be2 {Bd3 was a consideration. With f5 on the cards I am not keen to take on e4 and just give him a pawn chain leading all the way to the open f-File for what is sure to be a rook. I already felt the aggression and in my opponent, the one native I played, a somewhat older, grizzled guy, who could have passed off as a slightly younger Mike Ehrmentraut. He wanted to take out his anger on me and now we'd have a proper game.} O-O 10. O-O Bf6 {I was quite happy to see this move. In spite of playing these structures often I don't get many chances to really execute a proper minority attack at my level, and here was a sign that b4 and b5 were going to come in short order.} 11. b4 Be6 12. Be5 {Probably at least a minor inaccuracy by me. The problem was after b5 black could play c5 and my long black diagonal would be an absolute disaster. I also had potential weaknesses on the c file from my b4 push, so I wanted to at least solve one problem before getting in b5. Unfortunately, I think black has a number of pleasant choices here.} Nd7 13. Bxf6 {My opponent continued to use alot of time. He can retake the bishop in five(!) different ways. I offered a draw 5 minutes into his thought process. This was mostly for psychological reasons. Again, we were both out of the money. In some sense, I would be happy to play but also wouldn't mind resting for the blitz tournament and the draw would secure a score over 50%. But my opponent declined the draw. Viktor Korchnoi talked about the decliner of the draw offer often feeling obligations to push harder for a win than before, and my opponent's next move was one I had seen but was still a surprise.} gxf6 $5 {Well now we know he really wants to attack. If not on the f file then the g file it would seem. the pawn on f6 is doubled but covers squares my knight may want to visit, and with the white squares blocked up I don't see a way to the king, where it's possible Kh8 followed by approximately 7 heavy pieces on the g file might be coming at me. I had seen Re1, Bf1 and g3 type stuff thinking I'd have time if need be but this was now going to be potentially a violent war.} 14. b5 {I continue with my original plan, seeing nothing on the king side, and a center kind of locked up, and figuring i had time to defend my own king. I was scard of pawn sac ideas my opponent might try with f4 down the road, but that appeared needless for now.} Rc8 {A strong move. I cannot take now because c3 would hang, after a rook recapture, and I can't take on e4 super easily because it just gives him a potentially big attack with initiative. So I decided to temporarily sac a pawn.} 15. Qb3 Nxc3 16. Qxc3 cxb5 17. Qb4 Qb6 $1 { I think this was the best move on the board. I had no interest in an immediate recapture, as I was looking at Qd6 if a6 was played and trying to start getting my own kingside play against the damaged structure. I had originally thought I would play Qe7 if Qb6 was played, but once Qb6 was played I realized Qe7 was utterly useless. Lucky that this hallucination was minor and I had a perfectly reasonable alternative.} 18. Qxb5 Qxb5 19. Bxb5 Rc7 {Trying to double on the c file. After my doubts, I now feel I have dynamic equality at worst and am probably a good bit better. My king is not getting checkmated and his structure is now awful with a bad bishop to boot.} 20. Rfc1 Rfc8 21. Rxc7 Rxc7 22. Bd3 {Better was Bf1 right away I think. I can't fight for the c file just yet.} Rc3 23. Bf1 Nb8 24. g3 {My plan is now very simple, go after the f4 pawn!} Nc6 25. Bh3 Kf7 26. Nh4 Ne7 {That plan is foiled, but the advantage is that his pieces are really tied down. I can't walk my king in as Ng6 would spoil everything and then some. So now I have a new plan. A second minority attack of sorts. I want to push my pawn to h5, then swing my rook to the b file and pressure b7.} 27. a4 Bd7 28. a5 Ke8 29. Rb1 Rc7 {And his rook has everything covered. The next move he covers it even more stopping a6 even further. I am at this point just kind of lost, but not willing to accept a draw, and start to improve my pieces in miniscule ways as he can't really move much either.} 30. Kg2 Bc8 31. Rb2 Rc4 32. Ra2 {Rb5 to maybe eventually c5 was a consideration but I rejected it as it felt risky somehow.} Kd8 33. Kf3 Rc1 Bg2 Kc7 35. Ke2 Bd7 {I thought this was not a great move by my opponent. I now have stumbled upon a suspect plan but still better than no plan at all. I simply want to get rid of his one good piece by swapping rooks. This carries some risk, including the threat of him being able to get enough pawns off to possibly force me into an infamous knight + bishop ending which I cannot do.} Kd2 Rc4 37. Rc2 Bb5 38. Rxc4+ {And here I think i blundered, or at least was not careful. My opponent was down to 7 minutes where I still had 45. I assumed he would take with the bishop hence the previous move, but I was afraid of dxc4 which in some lines would be scary for me if he could connect a couple of pawns.} Bxc4 39. Bh3 Kc6 40. Bxf5 {Maybe taking with the knight is better, but i had calculated this line, and I figured if the knight didnt take on f5 my h pawn would be way too fast , and if the knight takes, I had calculated the following line which was played in the game.} Nxf5 41. Nxf5 Kb5 Nd6+ Kxa5 43. Nxb7+ Kb4 44. Kc2 {The a pawn is dangerous, but sort of like a wrong bishop and rooks pawn ending, My king alone can cover it. Normally I'd want my king in the action but I'm hoping my knight can do some work here. I think this was not a great plan. It's also at this point that I fully realize this feels like a 12 round boxing match and I'm in round 8 having hit a wall.} a5 45. Kb2 a4 46. Nd6 a3+ 47. Ka1 Kc3 48. Ne8 f5 49. Nd6 Bd3 {This move should have been obvious to me but it wasn't. I burned a good amount of time here to figure out what exactly I was going to do. I realized I must take the a pawn to force his king into an irrevocable decision.} 50. Ka2 Kd2 51. Kxa3 Ke2 52. Kb4 Kxf2 53. Kc5 Be4 {And I had seen this position in my calculations which is good, but what is not good is that I had thought Nxe4 just wins. It only draws. On my bad days i woulda played Nxe4 thinking it was still winning. It wasn't. It's a small sign of maturity that I am maybe checking this more closely, but bad that I can't calculate further ahead. I now had to find a win. I desperately tried to make Nxf5 work 3 separate times and all failed. I triple-checked nxe4 and wondered if I could win the queen endgame but could'nt find a way. I then was just sort of stumbling on moves when I found g4, which is a huge resource in the position and I am pretty sure white's only winning try.} 54. g4 fxg4 55. Nxe4+ dxe4 56. d5 Kg2 57. d6 Kxh2 58. d7 g3 59. d8=Q g2 60. Qh4+ {I felt really good, this should be winning!} Kg1 61. Kd4 $4 {What a huge blunder. Amazingly this didn't cost half a point. The normal technique for winning the g pawn now doesn't apply. I had thought about taking the e pawn, but thought that was silly and a waste of time and might give counterplay. It turns out it's necessary if I want to stop the g pawn.} Kf1 62. Qf4+ Ke2 63. Qg4+ Kf1 {And now I was just cursing myself out under my breath. Qf3 in normal situations forces the king to g1, where I can move my own king, but here is obviously impossible.} 64. Kxe4 {I found this 2nd plan. I had no idea if it would win at the time I was just sure it wouldn't lose and that was going to have to be good enough.} g1=Q Qxg1+ Kxg1 66. Kf3 Kh2 67. Kg4 h5+ {One last move to find, I had already seen that I had to keep opposition so that the king would be forever behind my pawn.} 68. Kh4 Kg2 69. e4 Kf3 70. e5 {And utterly exhausted, I survived with a win. I couldn't tell you what happened on the board left to me or two to the right of me or nearly any in my row even though they were all finished. I told my opponent how much respect I had for his game, and how it was the hardest I had to work in my life. He acknowledged how brutal it was on him as well. I thought about being a sick addict and entering the blitz tourney, but having basically become a blunder machine nearly by the end, I thought better of it and staggered back to my hotel happy, in love with chess and exhausted. And while it's probably untrue, I'd like to think I'd feel the same if it was a draw.} 1-0 [/pgn]

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