SenseiDanya (1919) vs psilo_simon (1509)

1930Episode 24 · 1-0

During the gameIn the review

  1. King's Indian Defense: Sämisch Variation, 6.Be3 e5 7.d5 Nbd7
  2. 1.d4 g6 2.c4 Bg7 3.e4 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6
  3. 5. f3 The Sämisch: castle long against the King's Indian Opening One of his favourite lines against the King's Indian, and the one he recommends to most of his students: the Sämisch, named after the Austrian grandmaster Friedrich Sämisch. It looks odd - why take f3 away from the knight? - but it builds a little pawn chain defending e4, and makes a crevice for the bishop. In most lines White then castles long and launches a Sicilian-style pawn attack on the kingside. It is about the only line against the King's Indian where White regularly castles long, an attempt to put the opening out of commission - though Black has attacking chances of his own.
  4. 5...O-O 6.Be3
  5. 6... e5 Attacking on a flank, close the centre Strategy The rule for the centre when you are attacking on a flank: close it, don't open it.
  6. 7.d5
  7. 7... Nbd7 A King's Indian move that misfires in the Sämisch Opening In the review: Black's main move is c6, the old main line, which he used to play. It opens the c-file and prepares b5 quickly, so Black gets his own counter-attack going and the position becomes pandemonium. The knight to d7 is a very King's Indian move - and that is why the Sämisch is good: the standard King's Indian ideas often work less well against it. This was actually the mistake.
  8. 8.Qd2 Re8 9.O-O-O Nc5
  9. 10. Bh6 Bh6 first, so h4 does not allow ...h5 Attack Attacking on the kingside is an art. Rather than close your eyes and push pawns, slow down and work out the priorities. If White starts with h4, Black can slow the attack badly with h5. There is a rule against pushing pawns in front of your king, but it does not always hold, and h5 gains Black time because White needs g4 to break it. So what non-pawn move makes h4 stronger? The bishop to h6. Its main purpose is to remove the fianchettoed bishop, the king's chief defender; its second is to hold Black down while h4 and h5 come. The point of a pawn storm is often just to open files for the rooks - sometimes you even jettison a pawn so the rook gets the open h-file. The review agrees: the bishop to h6 was right.
  10. 10...Bd7
  11. 11. h4 Do not trade the bishop before it has done its job Attack A very common mistake is to take on g7 too early. Trading bishops is good, but remember why the bishop went to h6: stopping h5 matters more. Take first and then play h4, and Black answers h5 and can bring a rook to h8 as an extra defender. So h4 first. h5 need not be rushed, and g4 would make sure that after h5 Black cannot take on h5.
  12. 11...a6
  13. 12. g4 g4, so the h-file opens on White's terms Attack Weigh h5 against g4. If h5, the knight takes it, and after g4 it does not obediently retreat to f6: it goes to f4, cutting White's queen off from h6, the square it wants. So g4 is worth it: then h5 cannot be met by the knight capture, and White opens the h-file on his own terms, takes the bishop and slides the queen into h6. It costs a little time that Black could use on the queenside, but he has delayed long enough for White to afford it. g4 is the more thematic way, the prescribed method.
  14. 12...Kh8 13.h5
  15. 13... Rg8 Passive defence when counterplay is too slow Strategy A decent defensive plan, which will stave off mate for quite a while. A defender often chooses between active and passive defence. Passive has a bad name, but sometimes curling up is what is needed, because the counter-attack is too slow - and b5 would be: it would take five or six moves to create anything. In the review he finds an even more creative defence, locking the kingside with g5 after the exchanges. Defending can be very creative, which is why some people like it, but the rook move is understandable.
  16. 14.hxg6 fxg6
  17. 15. Bg5 When the king moves, the bishop's job changes Attack A move to blow your mind. The whole time the plan was to trade bishops - but you have to stay receptive to how circumstances change and never get tunnel vision. The king has gone to h8, straight into the line of the rook. The queen does not have to reach h6; h2 serves the same purpose. The plan is the queen to h2 and removing the defender of the h-pawn. Because Black put his king in the corner, the bishop now has a different job: Black's bishop is no longer the main defender - the knight on f6, protecting h7, is.
  18. 15... Bf8 No mate yet is not a mistake Attack All of these moves stave off mate. If you are not finding mate, it is not because you did something wrong. Be patient: against a good defence you accumulate pieces and build the attack one stage after another.
  19. 16. Qh2 The queen attacks best from the shadows Attack Why not the queen to h2 a move earlier? Black could take the bishop and bring his queen to f8. The queen is often best in the shadows, at the back of an attack; right in the king's face it is strong but exposed. On h2 it is as powerful as on h6 and much less vulnerable. Taking on f6 first would have been premature: after the recapture, the queen to h2 threatens mate but is easily parried, and the bishop is gone.
  20. 16... Rg7 Add Tabasco sauce: more pieces Attack Black is defending very well. A good time to practise patience: there is no mate, and taking the knight would just give up the bishop. Add some Tabasco sauce to the attack - more pieces. That takes patience too; the knight cannot reach the attack in one move. One plan is the rook to d2 and, once the queen moves, to h2 - not quite Alekhine's gun, but the best available.
  21. 17.Qh4 Be7
  22. 18. Nh3 Do not cash out an attack cheaply Strategy So the bishop needs a defender. It blocks the h-file and looks counterproductive, but this is the long game: the file will be unblocked later, at the cost of one tempo, and Black has nothing going on the queenside. Patience, and an eye for how an attack keeps changing shape - he had missed the capture on d5, but that is no reason to lose your head. In the review: when attacking, be very discerning about cashing out. If someone offers you a hundred dollars in cash for your winning lottery ticket, you keep the ticket; a million, you might think about it. Trading your attack for a rook is the million; for the exchange, the hundred.
  23. 18...Qf8 19.Rd2 Ng8
  24. 20. Bxe7 Rejigger the attackers Attack A nice restructuring - he calls it rejiggering the attackers - that brings everything in and unblocks the h-file: take the bishop, then the knight goes from h3 to g5. Always look for this kind of thing.
  25. 20...Rxe7 21.Ng5 h6
  26. 22. b4 Look at both sides of the board Strategy Look at both sides of the board. This does not trap the knight, which has one square, but it leads somewhere: after the trade, the bishop is out of the way and e6 is free for the knight. That means allowing the queen to take on f3, and he sacrifices that pawn, because e6 is a massive square for the knight. In the review: Black could have played b5 earlier, Benko-style; now White has b4 first. Do not be afraid to push the pawns in front of your king sometimes - and look, the knight is trapped.
  27. 22...Na4 23.Nxa4 Bxa4 24.Ne6 Rxe6 25.dxe6 Qxf3 26.Bd3 Qf8
  28. 27. Rf2 Flexibility above everything Strategy The rook that was meant for h2 goes to f2 instead, to infiltrate on f7. Flexibility above everything. That will trap the queen and win the game.
  29. 27...Qg7 28.Rf7
  30. 28... g5 Defend threat by threat General A great defensive move. The review agrees, though by then Black did not have enough material. That is how to defend: resist every move, bring pieces in, do not panic, defend threat by threat.
  31. 29.Qh5 Nf6 30.Qxh6+ Qxh6 31.Rxh6+ Kg8 32.Rhxf6 Be8 33.Rxc7
  32. Black resigned
End of episode 24 · 1-0 ← 23. vs KarateBaby (2235)All games at 1930