Friday, February 12, 2010


This is from the second game of the Deep Freeze Quads 2010 (Feb) at the Bergen Chess Mates based in Ridgewood, New Jersey.

If this position looks complicated to you, well, it is. As black, I had foregone castling to save a move and commence a pawn storm on the kingside on the tenth move. It worked pretty well, wresting the initiative from white, until about now, when that pesky pin of the bishop on e5 against my king made it very clear that castling early does have its benefits.
I had temporarily sacrificed a knight on d5 for a tempo, to allow my queen to invade white's castled position.

The previous moves were 24...Qh1+ 25. N(e2)g1
... In my calculations earlier, I relied on 25... Bd4 but didn't realize that the bishop would be pinned, preventing the move. So, I thought for a while and decided to castle 25... 0-0 to get out of the pin, connect my rooks, and set a trap as well. Now, my very own bishop on e5 isn't truly hanging as you will see. White would have won if he played 26. Ne7+ Kg7 27. Nc6! ( not 27. Nc8). A reversal of fortune greeted white when he took the bait with 26. Re5? because after 26...Bd5!( diagram ) he had too many threats to deal with at the same time.

White's queen is attacked, his rook on c1 is hanging, and there's a mate threat on g2. With two pieces up, white is losing. White played 27. Qd5 27...Rc1+ 28. Re1 Re1+ 29. Ke1 Qg1+ 30. Kd2 Qf2+ 31. Kc3 Rc8+ 32. Kb3 Qb6+ 33. Ka2 Qc6 34. Qe5 h4 35. f6? allowing the exchange of queens Qe6+ 36. Qe6 fe6 and black easily won the endgame.

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