Section 1 Report by Yefim Treger
In my last June quad I created a very bright position (position 3) in a game with Ari, a young student who achieved a good rating by his good calculated skills. I was lucky to win a game but only because of my rich experience in an endgame. In the opening and middle-game Ari did not commit any fatal mistakes; moreover he calculated correctly key position 3.
As usual let’s discuss all key positions in the picture (in all of them White is to move). Position 0 symbolizes a strange opening (I do not even know its name!) by which I wanted to surprise my opponent. It had worked - for an endgame Ari left a little time for himself (here is a hint: for any position do not think on one move more than 10% of your time, which is for this quad with a time control 45 minutes is no more than 5 minutes). In Position 0 White’s moves - 3. e5 and 3. ed5 are equally good. Ari chose 3. ed5 and after 3… Qxd5 4. Nf3 e5 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. Bd2 Bxc3 7. Bxc3 e4 position 1 had occurred.
Now Ari had made a dubious move 8. Qe2 since after my simple answer 8…Nge7 his d4-pawn became undefended after its Nf3-defender would be gone somewhere. So after 8. Qe2 Nge7 9. Nd2 Nxd4 10. Bxd4 Qxd4 11. O-O-O Qa4 (what resulted in position 2)
I won d-pawn thinking that my position was better. However in this moment I saw that White could play 12. Qe4 sacrificing his a2-pawn since after 12. Qe4 Qa2 13. Bc4 Qa1 14. Nb1 Black could not complete his normal piece development because of his pinned e7-knight. In the mentioned variant White would have a huge initiative so instead of 12… Qa2 I would definitely trade queens on e4 admitting that my last move of 11…Qa4 was inaccurate. Here is a preliminary conclusion. Do not trust your opponent in everything! (Once again: the move pawn a3 made by Ari is weak; White had to play Qe4).
At last let’s discuss position 3. My last move was 17…Ne7-d5! That is the move and position I am proud of! A brave knight had stepped into a square controlled by three opponent’s pieces! Now let’s think together why any capture of this knight is losing for White. If White had captured d5-knight by his night or rook Black plays Be4 winning. The most beautiful variant which I had to calculate is in the capture of my knight by his bishop: 18. Bd5 Re2 19. Bc6 Rc2 20. Kb1 Rc3 and 21…. Rc6.
Ari had calculated this perfectly and made move 18. Qf3. Now I thought about two moves: taking his e4-bishop by g6-bishop or by e8-rook. Taking by e8-rook looked very promising as I saw that after 18. Qf3 Rxe4 19. Nxe4 Nb4 20. Nf6 gf6 21. Qc6 Nc6 I would have two pieces for the rook. But then I saw a possible move 19. Rd5 in the variant above (instead of 19. Ne4 White plays 19. Rd5) and decided not to risk with a new sacrifice. I simplified the position by move 19. Nxe4 Nc3 but after trading knights and queens I received only a slightly better position in a rook endgame. A text of a game after 29-th move was unavailable because we both were short of time (especially Ari as I told you earlier in this report).
I was lucky to penetrate my king to his right flunk, win his pawns and promote my pawn to the queen winning a game (some details are given in the comments of the PGN file below).
But my final conclusion about our game and my opponent is in the following facts. I am very glad of finding the very stunned move Nd5 resulted in position 3; I am giving Ari a big credit for finding all key variants in position 3; he had fought seriously and strongly!
We do NOT have a tournament next Saturday, on July 6th. We will resume both the Glen Rock Quads and ICA Open the following Saturday, on July 13th!
REMINDER
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