Last night I played my first game since the beginning of the Book Challenge. I felt that I played well enough in the opening, then stumbled a bit followed by opponent missing a forced (though a long line) mate.
So all in all a bit of luck can often go a long way.
[Event "Bountiful Bread and Breakfast Quad"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "2017.02.16"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Coons, James"]
[Black "Wainscott, Chris"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "E97"]
[WhiteElo "1867"]
[BlackElo "1804"]
[PlyCount "52"]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. d4 O-O 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O Nc6 8. d5
Ne7 9. b4 Nh5 10. Re1 {Rats. Jim is now playing the mainline, which is not
what I prepped for. He used to play} (10. c5 f5 11. Ng5 {Here I was going to
play} Nf4 {as I have studied this line from Kotronias’s third book on the KID
by Quality Chess.}) 10... f5 11. Ng5 Nf4 {I spent a few minutes trying to suss
out any differences between 10.c5 and 10.Re1. Clearly the bishop can now
retreat to f1. but does that make this move unplayable? After a few minutes
of thought I didn’t see anything major and decided to go for it.} (11... Nf6 {
This is the main move, but truth be told I hadn’t looked much at this line
recently which is why I didn’t play it.}) 12. Bf1 h6 13. Nf3 {Here I felt I
had already equalized, which is quite a nice feeling against Coons since he
has a reputation of destroying the King’s Indian.} fxe4 14. Nxe4 Bf5 {I’d
rather have the knight here, but that is currently impossible due to} (14...
Nf5 15. g3 Nh5 16. g4) (14... Bg4 {Objectively this is probably a better
square for this bishop since with the bishop on f5 White is about to cause me
to have to defend quite accurately.}) 15. Bxf4 ({Now if White tried to kick
the knight with} 15. g3 {he winds up in huge trouble after} Nh3+ 16. Bxh3 ({
Even worse is} 16. Kg2) 16... Bxh3 {and those tender light squares around the
king look like a sign of trouble to come.}) 15... exf4 16. Rc1 g5 ({I’d like
to play} 16... Bd7 {because I’d like f5 for my knight, but then White gains a
ton of space with} 17. c5 Nf5 18. c6 bxc6 19. dxc6) 17. Nd4 Bxd4 {This felt
forced since after} (17... Bd7 18. Ne6 Bxe6 19. dxe6 {Black has to be very
careful.}) 18. Qxd4 Ng6 19. f3 {This is an excellent example of a good
prophylactic move.. I don’t have a dark squared bishop to exploit the opening
of the g1-a7 diagonal and it prevents me from playing f3 myself.} Ne5 20. c5
Kh7 {I was having a hard time finding any sort of active plan here, so it was
here that I realized I was going to have to prepare to defend.} 21. cxd6 cxd6 {
Here Jim reached for the pawn on d6 and then stopped as he saw that I could
take on f3 with check. After calculating a few minutes more he went ahead and
played} 22. Nxd6 Nxf3+ 23. gxf3 Qxd6 24. Bd3 {I’m assuming this is the move
that he found when he hesitated to take on d6 earlier.} Kg8 $4 {I wanted to
just get out of the pin and figured that after} 25. Bc4 $4 (25. Bxf5 Rxf5 26.
Re6 Qxd5 {I would be fine. However, this position was gnawing at me for quite
some time, so I put it in the engine where I found that it’s a huge blunder.}
27. Rg6+ {And now mate after} Kf7 28. Qg7+ Ke8 29. Re1+ Kd8 30. Qe7+ Kc8 31.
Rc1+ Kb8 32. Qc7#) 25... Rac8 26. Bb3 Kh7 {Moving off of the a2-g8 diagonal to
end any tactical ideas of bringing a rook to the 7th followed by d6 discovered
check. Here I offered a draw which was accepted.} 1/2-1/2
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Til Next Time,
Chris Wainscott
