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Hall 0-1 Mordue

2006-05-07 - Hall, Daniel 0-1 Mordue, Tyson

Tyson - Played on my birthday!

[Event "FROME OPEN"] [Site "?"] [Date "2006.05.07"] [Round "5"] [White "Hall, Daniel"] [Black "Mordue, Tyson"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "B84"] [Annotator "Mordue,Tyson"] [PlyCount "54"] [EventDate "2006.??.??"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 d6 6. Be2 a6 7. O-O Be7 8. f4 Qc7 9. Kh1 O-O 10. g4 {Both my young opponent and his older brother Joshua are noted for their attacking flair. Daniel was probably encouraged by the close game he'd had with me at Exmouth three weeks previously. He'd had the better of the opening but lost a tight endgame after 60-odd moves. On the other hand I'd also beaten Daniel in the last round of the Frome Congress in 2005, and his brother in Round 3 of the 2006 version! The advance g2-g4-g5 is, of course, not unusual against the Scheveningen variation of the Sicilian Defence.} Nc6 11. g5 Nd7 12. f5 {A clear statement of attacking intent. This is one of the worst scenarios in chess. You find a young, promising, booked-up opponent is determined to blow you off the board and throws all his Pawns forward in the opening. Okay, let's NOT panic. Black hasn't actually made any mistakes yet, and I've been playing Sicilian Defences for over 30 years so experience is on my side. The first rule of defence is don't make any weakening moves in front of the King unless you absolutely have to. Secondly the defence may retreat but it must be an economical retreat. Thirdly, remember that White is opening up his own King with all these advances. Counterattacking chances will come along sooner or later. Here Black wants to maintain a Pawn on e6 at all costs. Ceding control of the d5 square and allowing a White Knight to go there might well be fatal in conjunction with the Kingside Pawn storm. Another point to bear in mind here is that Black has the outpost on e5 available to him, and a Knight is already set to go there. With the e6 square under pressure Black's first counter is straightforward. The Knight on d4 must be eliminated. The White Queen that replaces it can always be driven back with a timely ...Qc5.} Nxd4 13. Qxd4 Re8 $1 {Keeping cool. Admittedly this does allow White to control the f-file unchallenged for a while but the only vulnerable spot is f7. White can't effectively get more pieces to focus on this square and, when it settles on e5, the Black Knight will control f7. Also after an eventual ...Bf8 the Queen on c7 protects it laterally. For example 14 f6 Bf8 15 fxg7 Bxg7 16 Qf2 Ne5 and Black is fine. Deep Rybka says White is better by about 0.25 which is fine from Black's perspective. Black's King is probably safer that White's in the long run. White has lots of attacking options here. Exchanging on e6 followed by either Bh5, Bg4 or Bc4 are all possibilities. Advancing to f6 without exchanging on g7 is another. Black can then consider playing ... g7-g6 and White will start thinking about advancing his h-Pawn to open lines. Of course such whole-hearted advances can rebound. See the game Fischer-Gligoric Varna Olympiad 1962 where White's King was sucked into the vacuum left behind by the advancing foot soldiers. All of the above options can be deferred by first playing 14 Be3. After some thought Daniel comes up with a thematic Pawn sacrifice that loosens the foundations of Black's position further, but relies solely on active piece play} 14. g6 $5 hxg6 15. fxg6 fxg6 {Black can contest the open f-file with ...Rf8 whenever he needs to. The half open h-file is not a problem because White cannot double on it whilst Black controls h6, h5 and h4. White must pressure e6 and g6 but Black can easily defend e6 and the forthcoming ... Ne5 will defend g6. A critical line is 16 Qg1 Ne5 17 Bf4 Bf6 18 Bxe5 Bxe5 19 Qxg6 Qe7 20 Rf3! and the switch to h3 is now on. After 16 Qg1 it is better to return the Pawn with 16 ...g5 17 Bxg5 Bxg5 18 Bh5 Re7 19 Qxg5 Ne5 and the position is roughly level. 16 Be3 is also playable and 16 Bg4 Ne5 17 Bh3 may have some merit. Instead there now comes an odd double oversight.} 16. Bc4 $4 Ne5 $2 {My opponent confessed that he overlooked this move completely. Perhaps he missed that the Bishop on c8 defends the e6 square here. Odd because it is very definitely one of Black's main moves here, but that caused me to miss 16...Bf6 simply winning material. White's Queen is tied to defending the Bishop on c4 but 17 Qd3 loses a piece to 17...Ne5, so White must give up the Exchange for no compensation with 17 Rxf6. Nevertheless Black now has a clear advantage which Deep Rybka evaluates as 0.83.} 17. Bb3 Qc5 $1 { Consistently trying to force White backwards. White should now probably acquiesce in the Queen exchange with 18 Qxc5 dxc5 After 19 Bf4 Bf6 I thought 20 Rad1 was okay for White, but 20...b5 threatening to trap the Bishop on b3 retains the initiative for Black. Also possible is 18 Be3 Qxd4 19 Bxd4 but after 19... Bf6 Black is comfortable and a Pawn ahead to boot. White didn't sacrifice on g6 just to go into this sort of ending. A tempting alternative is 18 Qxc5 dxc5 19 Na4 intending Na4-b6xBc8 and Bxe6+, but this fails to 19...c4! 20 Nb6 cxb3 21 Nxa8 Bd7 22 Nb6 Bc6 and Black threatens both 23...Bxe4+ 24 Kg1 Bc5+ and 23 ...bxc2. Later I found White can cause some bother with 22 Bf4 (instead of 22 Nb6), but Black can improve first with 21... bxc2! when White must go 22 Nb6. Now Black can play 22...Bc5 forcing 23 Nxc8 Rxc8 with two Pawns and ample compensation for the Exchange. Not really a surprise as all White has done in this line is capture Black's unmoved pieces! Subsequently Deep Rybka found an improvement. After 18 Qxc5 dxc5 19 Na4 c4! 20 Nb6 cxb3 21 Nxa8 Bd7 (21...bxc2 is still good according to the engine.) 22 Bf4 it discovered 22...Bc6! 23 Bxe5 Bxe4+ 24 Kg1 Bc5+ 25 Rf2 bxc2! - threatening to take on f2 and then a8 but with the added bonus of a Pawn on c2 - 26 Nc7 Rf8 27 Bg3 Rd8! and White has no reasonable defence to 28...Rd1. These variations demonstrate clearly how exposed the White King has become because of the advance of his own protective Pawns. Meanwhile Black's monarch has, and continues to be, untroubled. Understandably Daniel keeps Queens on, but now he has no compensation for the sacrificed Pawn and Black's pieces start occupying strong and natural squares.} 18. Qd1 $2 Bd7 {Ironically Black now has a lead in development with two extra moves for his Queen and Queen's Bishop. So much for White's aggressive approach in the early middle-game. However, Black must take care as he still has some weak Pawns although they are adequately protected at the moment.} 19. Qe1 Rf8 {Black is now clearly better. Daniel's last move is an attempt to play his Queen to the h4-e1 diagonal, whereas 19 Qe2 is far as White gets on the d1-h5 diagonal. Now the simple tactic 20 Be3?? Rxf1+ 21 Qxf1 Qxe3 persuades White that if he wants to eject the Queen from its active square on c5 then he must first exchange Rooks and cede control of the f-file. 20 Bf4 is a viable alternative but Black stands well.} 20. Rxf8+ Rxf8 21. Be3 Qc8 $1 {Finally White has played Be3 but he discovers that he has now blocked the e-file. Black threatens to play ... Bc6 and undermine the e4 Pawn with b7-b5-b5. From c8 the Queen defends e6 and prepares to back up the Bishop from b7 if necessary. White may consider the regrouping Ne2, c2-c3 and Bc2 for example, but the pressure on e6 is relaxed and so ...Qc8-b7 is viable. White actually chooses to put his Queen on g2 to support e4. The text is a nice example of a strong retreat. Usually retreats indicate some sort of concession but, in particular, World Champions Botvinnik and Petrosian made going backwards with certain pieces very effective. In the Sicilian Defence is is also not unusual to have the Queen posted on a5, b6 or c7 and use d8 as a pivot to get to somewhere on the Kingside. Here the Queen intends going to some new lines, but what actually happens is that she goes even further down the c-file than she has ventured already. After some thought Deep Rybka endorses the move saying it increases Black's plus to about 1.3.} 22. Qg1 b5 23. Qg2 Nc4 $5 {Played after deep thought and, yet again, with Deep Rybka's endorsement. The idea is to cut out White's light-squared Bishop once and for all. As Black is attacking both e3 and b2 the following exchange seems forced but White may do better to play 24 Bd4 - Deep Rybka agrees again! Instead he gives in to the temptation to recover his Pawn. After the next move it's possible to calculate to the end of the game here. Have a go for yourself now.} 24. Bxc4 Qxc4 {Now came another long think, this time by my opponent. Once again Daniel was heading for desperate time-trouble as the time-control was move 40 and he had less than 15 minutes left. It occurred to me that 25 Bh6!? was an interesting try but I quickly established that I could just play 25... b4 anyway. Daniel was probably assessing how bad his positional problems were in the line 25 Qxg6 b4 26 Rg1 Rf7 27 Nd1 Bc6 28 Nf2 Bh4. They are bad enough but he hadn't seen what the real problem was. Subsequently Deep Rybka says that this line is even than the game, but the line I chose avoids getting accidentally mated on g7!} 25. Qxg6 $4 Rf1+ 26. Rxf1 Qxf1+ {Now 27 Qg1 Qf3+ 28 Qg2 Qxe3 is clearly no good, so White's next is forced.} 27. Bg1 b4 $1 {An abrupt end to an interesting game. The White Knight suddenly finds itself trapped. If White harbours ambitions of playing on with 28 Na4 Bxa4 29 Qxe6+ then Black first goes 28... Qf3+ to exchange Queens before taking the Knight.} 0-1

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