CHESS BY VICTOR STRUGO
Experts say the way you play reflects your personality. Control freaks prefer a tidy positional struggle with a clear plan. Wilder types enjoy knife-edge positions with so many choices to analyse that one move by either side spells disaster or triumph. Experts also tell us all positions are the same: winning tactics flow logically from positional advantages. They’re quite right, but there’s a snag: chess is very complicated!
This game was played in the Tata Steel Challengers.
Max Warmerdam (Neths, 2616) - Jerguš Pecháč
(Slovakia, 2637): 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bb5 Nge7
(The Cozio Defence to the Ruy Lopez, favoured by strategic players who like to keep their pawn structures intact) 4 Nc3 Ng6 5 Bc4 Bc5 6 h4! (A declaration of intent to confuse! Objectively this and White’s next are harmless but psychology loves h-Pawns) 6 … h6 7 Nd5 Nge7 (Black is psyched into a third move with the same piece. 7 … d6 was better) 8 c3 (8 b4 Nxb4 9 Nxb4 Bxb4 10 Nxe5 d5! is also fine for Black) 8 ... O-O 9 Ng5?! Nxd5 10 exd5 b5! (Accurate. 11 dxc6 bxc4 favours Black) 11 Bb3 (Interesting is 11 Qc2 hxg5 12 hxg5 e4 though 13 Be2 [not 13 Qxe4? Re8!] keeps things balanced) 11 … Na5 12 Bc2 Nb7?! (This “fianchetto” avoid the threatened 13 b4 but so did 12 Bb6) 13 Qh5 d6?! (Better 13 Nd6, recentralising his Knight) 14 d4 (14 O-O Qe8 15 d4 exd4) 14 exd4 15 O-O f5 (Blocking the Bc2 looks logical but better was 15 … dxc3 16 bxc3 Qf6, meeting 17 Nh7? with Qxc3)
16 Nf3 dxc3 17 Bxh6 cxb2 18 Rae1 Qf6 19 Bd2 Bd7?! (Also looks logical but 19 b4! would prevent White’s next) 20 Bc3! Qh6? (Yet again looks logical but loses! Of course he can’t play 20 … Qxc3 21 Ng5 mating, but first 20 … Bxf2+! 21 Rxf2 Qxc3 works as after 22 Ng5 Qxe1+ 23 Rf1 Qe3+ 24 Kh1 Rf6 25 Qh7+ Kf8 26 Qh8+ Ke7, White only has 27 Qxg7+ and a perpetual [27 Qxa8?? Rh6! 28 Nf3 Qc1! wins for Black]) 21 Re7!! Qxh5 (He must accept the Queen or lose the Bd7 for zip) 22 Rxg7+ Kh8 23 Rf7+ Kg8 24 Rg7+ Kh8 25 Rxd7+ Rf6 (It’s either this or lose the Qh5 to a Rg5 discovery – the same “windmill” combination used by Carlos Torre against Emanuel Lasker in Moscow in 1925) 26 Bxf6+ Kg8 27 Rg7+ Kf8 28 Ng5 (Eyeing e6 and mate in 2, so) 28 ... Bxf2+ 29 Rxf2 Nc5 30 Bxb2 Qe8 (Oops!) 31 Nh7 mate.
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How does WHITE finish the game swiftly?