Mike Splane (2257) - Louis Arquie
(1842)
June 14, 2007
This was an odd game. Usually when a player loses it is easy to spot the mistakes. Louie doesn’t do anything obviously wrong, yet he gets gradually pushed out of the center and eventually his position collapses. I lost several games this way to Emmanuel Perez in the early 90’s, and a couple more to Craig Mar. Feels good to be on the other side for a change.
1. e4
c5 2. c3
d5 3.ed Qd5 4.
d4 Nf6
Last year he played 4. … e6. I think shutting in the queen bishop is bad for Black. 4. … Nf6 is the correct move order for Black, followed by Bg4 and e6, delaying the development of the Nc6. Here’s a speed game that shows why delaying the development of the Nf6 is bad.
1. e4 c5 2. c3 d5 3.ed Qd5 4. d4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. Be2 e6 7. h3 Bh5 8. c4 Qd8 9. g4 Bg6 10. d5 Nb4 11. Nc3 Nc2+ 12. Kf1 Na1 13. Qa4+ Qd7 14. Nb5 Rc8 15. Ne5 Bc2 16. b3 Qe7 17. d6 1-0 (Splane – Gene Lee 5-1-1998)
5. Nf3 Nc6 6. Be2 e6 7. 0-0 Be2 8. Be3
Perhaps this is a mistake. The threat is simple, to capture the c pawn, but it exposes my bishop to exchange.
I looked at this position in Chesslab.com’s database. Usually Black exchanged on d4, but I did find 5 games where Black played 8. … Ng4. In three of them White played 9. Bf4, one went 9. Nbd2 and the last one went 9. c4 Qh5 10. Bf4.
8. … Ng4
Now I have a psychological problem to solve. Do I move the
bishop and admit I was wrong, or try to turn a lemon into lemonade. 9. Bf4
saves the bishop pair but doesn’t put any pressure on Black. I opted to play
more dynamically. After the game we talked about the exchange on e3. He was
afraid of opening the f file for my rook. I was afraid of my raggedy pawn
structure and giving my opponent the advantage of the two bishops. Ironically,
he does eventually capture the bishop with the knight, but only after wasting 6
knight moves to get back to g4.
If I reach this position again, I think I will play a novelty, 9. Ne1! forcing the exchange on e3 without loosening White’s pawn structure. The open f file and extra center pawn must help White. 9. … Ne3 10. fe cd 11. ed looks great for White, and 10. … Qe4 11. Nc2 is also good.
9. c4 Qd8
I spent about ten minutes analyzing 9. c4 and he retreated his queen without a second’s thought. I was behind on the clock after this.
The point behind 9. c4 is that he can’t capture on e3. after 9. c4 Ne3 10. cd Nd1 11. dc Nb2 12. Nd2 his knight is trapped. 12. … Bf6 13. Rab1 Bd4 14. Nb5 wins. I wasn’t seeing the positions clearly in my mind’s eye, so I thought it would be useful to force myself to work through the analytical process. I also considered whether or not to play cb on move 12, but this just activates his bishop.
I didn’t really look at what to do if he retreated
his queen. I assumed I could push the d pawn and gain another tempo.
10. d5 ?
I wanted to develop my knight, but was concerned with weaknesses on the c5 g1 diagonal. I looked at 10. Nc3 Ne3 11. fe cd 12. ed Nd4 13. Nd4 Bc5 14. Nb5 a6 or 14. … e5 and stopped analyzing. After the game we looked at this and the position is very interesting. After 14. … e5 15. b4 eliminates the pin and White wins a piece. After 14. … a6 15. b4 Bb4 16. Qa4 ab 17. Qb5+ wins a piece.
I also noticed after the game, that the order of recaptures on d4 matters. After 12. Nd4 Nd4 13. ed he doesn’t have the pinning … Bc5.
The problem with 10. d5 is it allows him to trade off his e pawn and free his queen bishop.
Louie started thinking deeply here and after a few minutes I
indulged in a little Jedi mind-trick. He has three reasonable looking moves
here: 10 … ed, or 10 ...
Ne3, or 10. … Nce5. I wanted him to play the latter. I started looking at the
knight on c6 and then looking at the e5 square. Then back at the knight then
back at the square. I was very careful to not look at the knight on g4. I had
read that players often are subconsciously affected by their opponent’s eye
movements. This time it worked.
10. … Nce5 11. Ne5
I put myself through a lot of unnecessary anguish here. I
was trying to calculate the consequences of 11. Ne5 Ne3 12. Nf7 Nd1 (12. … Kf7 13.
fe+ wins a pawn for white and exposes Black’s king)
13. Nd8 Nb2 14.
Ne6 Be6 15. de Na4 (otherwise it is trapped by Nc3) 15. Bf3 Rb8 16. Nd2. I’m up a
pawn, but there are opposite colored bishops and my pawns are all disconnected.
I thought this was winning but wasn’t confident about it. While I was thinking
about this, I finally noticed that 11. Ne5 Ne3 12. fe wins a piece without any effort.
I also considered 11. Bf4 Bd6 when more pieces are
exchanged. I thought the exchanges would help him more than they would help me.
As a general rule, when your opponent lacks space, you want to keep as many
pieces on the board as possible..
11. … Ne5 12. Nc3
Aimed at discouraging 12. … ed, which I thought was his best
move. I wasn’t sure if he would be more afraid of my knight recapturing or my
pawn recapturing, so I gave him both options to worry about.
12. … 0-0 13. f4 Ng6 14. Bd3
I considered 14. f5 ef 15. Bd3 f4 and thought he was getting too much freedom for his pieces. Then I noticed 15. … Ne5 and abandoned the whole idea.
I also looked at 14. de Be6? 15. f5, and at 14. … de 15. Qd1 ef+, both winning material, but wasn’t sure if I liked the
position after 14. de fe
when his rook is activated and the “weak” e6 pawn is hard to get at.
I was fairly certain that my bishop belonged on the b1-h7 diagonal, whatever the future course of the game, and I wanted to see if my opponent would weaken his position if I didn’t make forcing moves.
14. … a6
This looks logical to me, playing … b5 will break up my center. I debated stopping it with 15. a4, but then decided it wasn’t enough of a real threat to bother stopping. With my better development, opening lines has to be bad for him. After the game Louie thought that 14. … Re8 was a better idea. I agree that freeing f8 for his minor pieces is a good idea, but I still like …a6 because it puts pressure on me. .
15. Qc2!
This stops his idea cold. If 15. … b5 16. Rad1 bc 17. Bc4 ed 18. Bd5 Rb8 19. Bf7+, or if 16. … b4 17. Ne4 Qc7 18. d6 Bd6 19. Qd6 Bg6, so he has to prepare …b5 with
15. … Rb8 16. Rad1 Qe8?
I think this is the losing move. He wanted to stop the threat of 17. de fe 18. Bg6 but the cure is worse than the disease. The alternative is to capture on d5, but he is still in trouble after 16. … ed 17. Nd5 when White is threatening Bg6 followed by Nf6+ winning the queen. I considered this position winning so didn’t bother to analyze more. At home I couldn’t find anything decisive.
17. d6 Bf6
After 17. … Bd6 18. Bg6 wins a pawn for White
18. Bc5 Qc6 19. Ba7
Based on a miscalculation. I expected to be able to play 19. … Ra8 20. Be4 missing 20. … Qc4. As it turns out, the rook is badly placed on a8, so this move didn’t hurt me.
19. … Ra8
I wasn’t worried about 19 … Bc3 20. Qc3 Nh4 21. Qc2 when I have too many threats.
20. Be3 Re8
21. c5 e5?
This looks active, but it gives away ALL of the squares. Black’s position is hopeless now.
22. Be4 Qd7 23. f5 Nf8 24. Nd5 Bd8 25. g4
I was worried that he could block the position with 25. … f6 so I thought about playing 25. f6 gf 26. Rf6. I didn’t want to do this because it frees the e6 square for his pieces. Eventually I noticed that I could meet ….f6 by repositioning my queen on c4 and my bishop on b3. Since …f6 is not playable, I have time to prepare a pawn assault to open lines for my rooks.
25. … h6 26. Rd2 Nh7 27. h4 Nf6
Of course not 27. … Bh4 28. Nb6
28. g5 hg 29. hg Ng4 30. Rg2 Ne3 31. Ne3 Qb5 32. Bd5 e4 33. Bc4 (?)
Nick Conway pointed out after the game that 33. g6 Re5 34. Bf7+ Kf8 35. Rh2 mates. I only looked at 34. gf+
I didn’t want any surprise checks on c5 so I played this move to force the queen back to d7. After 33. … Qb4 34. a3 Qa5 the bishop check on f7 is decisive. 35. Bf7+ Kf8 36. Be8 Ke8 37. Qe4+ Kf8 38. Qd5 is as far as I analyzed. It’s quick mate after 38. … Bd7 39. g6 Be8 40. Rh2. I wanted to win with a combination, but 35. g6 is simpler and faster.
Black gave up here.
1-0