Balzdeep802 (2044) vs SenseiDanya (1733)

1650Episode 14 · 0-1

During the gameIn the review

  1. Sicilian Defense: McDonnell Attack, Tal Gambit
  2. 1.e4 c5
  3. 2. f4 A flank move gets a central answer Opening A move the speedrun has met once before, and its drawback is the one he wants remembered: it is a pawn move on the wing that develops nothing. The general answer to that kind of move is a strike in the centre. The review puts it plainly: the move would be fine if the d-pawn could not come forward. Which is why so many players start with the knight to c3 and push the f-pawn only after Black has committed - that is the Grand Prix Attack, and he recommends it.
  4. 2...d5 3.exd5
  5. 3... Nf6 Win the pawn back on your own terms Opening So the question is how to win the pawn back on Black's own terms, and what has to happen first. The knight comes out, and if White tries to hold the pawn with c4 that gets explained later. Otherwise the knight takes on d5 and the queen never has to be chased about. A typical little idea, and still theory. By the review the reason for it should be clear.
  6. 4. c4 Holding the pawn gives up d4 Pawn structure White does try to hold it, and the move costs a lot: it weakens d4, makes the light-squared bishop hard to develop actively, and is one more pawn move on top of the others. Objectively it is fine, he says in the review - Black simply gets full compensation, and probably a little more.
  7. 4... e6 Attack the tip when the tip is the problem Pawn structure To use any of that, the pawn on d5 has to go, since it is what keeps the knight off c6. The move many people think of is b5, and b3 answers it and keeps the chain intact. So this is a case of breaking the rule about hitting a chain at its base: here the tip is attacked, because getting rid of the tip is the whole aim. And the recapture will develop the bishop as well.
  8. 5.dxe6
  9. 5... Bxe6 Compensation comes in separate parts Strategy What Black has for the pawn comes in three separate parts. A lead in development - two pieces out, and out well, against none. A king that will never be quite safe, wherever it goes, because the f-pawn has moved. And d4: a square the knight can reach whenever it likes, so there is no hurry - finish developing, and plant the knight there later as a long-term outpost.
  10. 6.Nc3 Nc6
  11. 7. Nge2 The passive move that drops the pawn Opening A passive move. Defending the pawn with the other knight from f3, or with d3, was the way to go. The review calls this the mistake: he can see the knight is heading for g3 to hit the bishop, but White's position is too loose to spend a move on that. With d3, the knight out to f3, the bishop out and castling, White would have been solid - hard to break through, though Black's play would be easy, putting pieces on good squares and eventually going after that pawn.
  12. 7... Bxc4 The knight on b4, and a trap from the Baltic Tactics And it simply drops the pawn. He had looked at the knight jump to b4 with ideas against d3, which would have been interesting too, but the knight would just have moved to g3. This is simpler: the pawn is back and Black is much better - an opening disaster for White, though the f-pawn move is not a mistake in itself; White just has to know exactly what he is doing. The review returns to the knight jump for a detail: if White then struck in the centre with d4, Black has a winning blow after the exchanges on d4. He compares it with a trap in the Baltic Defence, where an unguarded-looking knight jump to b4 is very hard to stop from landing on c2. File the idea away with your other tactical patterns. In the end the capture on c4, which viewers had pointed out, was simply simpler.
  13. 8.Ng3
  14. 8... Bxf1 Trade the piece that lets him castle Strategy A trade is on offer, which means it has to be evaluated. People often assume the answer to this question is no. Here it is yes. The trade makes castling very hard or impossible for White: recapture with the knight and it stands in the way, recapture with the rook or king and castling is gone for the rest of the game. And that matters, because the king is obviously weak.
  15. 9.Rxf1
  16. 9... Be7 Keep your pieces out of each other's way Piece play White being unable to castle is no reason for Black not to - so get ready to. Two squares for the bishop, and he calls the choice a chance to develop a nuanced feel for piece placement. On d6 it looks more active, but it may walk into an unpleasant check. More to the point, the queen or a knight may want d3 one day, and the queen should keep her line to it - pieces should not stand in each other's way. This bishop will not be part of the attack anyway. The king gets tucked away first, so the attack does not have to keep looking over its shoulder.
  17. 10.Nge4 O-O 11.d3
  18. 11... Qd7 Pressure that is good even if it wins nothing Strategy The obvious way to go after it is the knight to b4. The catch is that the rook can defend from f3 and a3 can chase the knight off. He wants a more lasting way to lean on d3, and b4 commits the knight when it might want d4 instead. The c-pawn push does not work yet: White just takes it, because the knights protect each other. So queen to d7 and a rook to d8 - good moves on their own merits even if d3 never falls. And if the rook does come to f3, the knight goes to d4 with tempo, which is exactly why it has been left on c6. It will be the a-rook that goes to d8, so the f-rook can still find a good square on e8; the other way round, the a-rook has nowhere useful to go.
  19. 12.Rf3 Nd4 13.Rg3
  20. 13... Rad8 The pin he missed, and the pinned pinner Tactics Raise the pressure. Going to d4 does not cancel the original plan, and the rook belongs on d8 even though nothing is attacking d3 yet: it is preliminary pressure, and when the knight moves on, perhaps to f5, d3 is caught in the crossfire. There was a much better move, though, a tactical one he missed: the rook had stepped onto the same diagonal as White's king, and the bishop could pin it from h4 - his own advice, not applied. In the review: take on e4 first and then pin, and the exchange is won. The bishop would also be guarding f6 against the knight check, and he enjoys one more detail - the pinned rook is itself pinning a pawn on the g-file. A pinned piece can still be a pinner.
  21. 14.Kf1
  22. 14... Nf5 The in-between check Tactics The pressure on d3 is there, but cashing it in is not easy. The first step is to get the knight off d4. And to do it with tempo. Now Black's queen and rook stand facing White's queen on the d-file, so the c-pawn push that did not work earlier is suddenly very strong. In the review he also shows the cooler order: the c-pawn first and the knight afterwards. If the queens come off, look for the in-between move - the rook is taken with check, which is the whole point, and Black is an exchange up. He no longer remembers why he did not play it.
  23. 15.Rh3
  24. 15... c4 The push that failed before now works Pawn structure The push. Taking it loses a piece, and leaving it gives Black a pawn and a monster on d3 - an extra passed pawn - while the knight on e4 loses its support. He keeps an eye on his own king, because he can see the queen coming to h5, but there are not enough pieces left for that to be dangerous, and with White's king this weak a long attack is bound to backfire. The review calls this move crushing.
  25. 16.g4
  26. 16... Nxg4 Discovered check through a pawn Tactics This time the advice gets applied. The queen is looking through the g4 pawn along the line, so if the knight moves off it does so with discovered check. So the knight takes g4, and if the queen recaptures, the knight steps to e3 with check and the queen is lost - an elementary discovery. And from here White is simply lost.
  27. 17.Qxg4
  28. 17... Ne3+ Choose the right discovery Tactics Choose the right discovery rather than any discovery. Checking from g3 would be bad, because White takes the knight and the check is gone. From e3, the queen falls whatever he does. A queen for two pieces, and the rest is technique.
  29. 18.Bxe3 Qxg4 19.Rg3
  30. 19... Qh5 The queen square that keeps both jobs Piece play There are many good squares for the queen - e6, for instance, guards c4. He goes to h5 to hit h2. A knight check on f6 would be the thing to watch for, and here the bishop on e7 is the unsung hero that covers the square. The queen could go to d7, but that gives up c4; h5 keeps the queen in touch with d3 as well as hitting h2.
  31. 20.f5 Qxf5+ 21.Kg2
  32. 21... Rxd3 Ahead in material, capture so as to trade Strategy Now the whole position collapses. The pawn could have taken, but the rook does, because Black is trying to trade pieces. And if the bishop moves away, White's rook comes off and the position gets simpler still. There are plenty of ways to win from here.
  33. 22.Rf1 Qe6
  34. White resigned
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