Candidate master Peter Zhdanov's column at Pogonina.com
The previous episode finished rather abruptly after the second round of the Saratov open tournament. In the 3rd round I was to face another young underrated player. After having misplayed the French with White I ended up in the following position:
After a piece sacrifice (Na2!) Black got a dangerous attack, while White was sentenced to a long and tiresome passive defence. In a few moves the following position occurred:
Black wants to play Ba4-Bb3 and checkmate White. What can be done about it? I have considered both Ne5 and b4 & c4. I couldn't combine these ideas in my head and went for 19.b4 cb 20.c4.
A better continuation was: 19.Ne5 Na4 (if Ba4 then White has a decisive advantage b4 and c4) 20.Nd7 Rb2 21.Qb2 Nb2 22.Nf8 Nd1 23.Rd1 Qc3 24.Rd2 Qe3 25.d7 Qb3 26.Kc1 Qa3 27.Kd1 Qf8 with an unclear position).
By hanging on and defending stubbornly I managed to get my opponent into time trouble, where he blundered while trying to wrap up the game:
27.Bd3 cd? 28.Nd7 Nc3?? 29.Rc3 Rc3 30.Nb8 Qd4 31.Bc3 Qc3 32.Qc1 1-0
Of course, the right way to play was 27...Qg2 28.Nd7 Qd2 -+
In round 4 I was paired against a solid positional player rated 2012. During the middlegame he had some advantage, but not much. Nonetheless, at a certain point I was on the verge of losing:
After 21.f4 Black loses a knight since Ng4 is refuted by 22.Qg7! Kg7 23.Nb5 Qf6 24.Bf6 Kf6 25.Nc7+-, but my opponent played a positional move instead.
In the end I succeeded in obtaining counterplay after sacrificing a pawn:
25...Ng4 26.Bg7 Qg7 27.Rd7 Qh6 28.h3 Nf6 29.Rd6 Ne4 30.Rd7 Nf6 with a draw
Another epic story is my game against international correspondence master Fedukin, who believes that "1.c4 is winning, while 1...e6 is not losing". At some point he was rated 2273 FIDE, but has lost a lot of points since then, so I was aimed at beating him. In the Rubinshtein system of the French defense (which "guarantees at least a draw" according to my opponent) the maestro blundered a pawn:
18.Qe5
Then he decided to sacrifice an exchange and announced out loud "I hung a rook" after playing b6 in the following position:
Players sitting next to us lol-ed over this confession and started telling each other during subsequent rounds that they blundered something. Alas for my opponent, he indeed blundered the exchange since after 22.Ba8 Ra8 23.Rd1 Black could win back the exchange with 23...Ne8 24.Nd4 Bc4, but played 23...Be7 and found himself in a totally hopeless instead of simply hopeless position.
While converting the advantage I blundered a pawn, so this process took a long time.
The final position looked quite telling:
At this point Fedukin left the playing hall and was absent for a few minutes. All the arbiters and participants had to wait for him since this was the last game of the round. I suggested putting the pawn on h6 so that he could claim stalemate upon returning. Anyway, finally my opponent resigned and said that "he continued playing since he was hoping for a mistake on my part". While I was busy copying the moves into my notebook, Fedukin kept playing an imaginary game against himself and telling me how badly I play, that this opening shouldn't be treated like that, and that I should definitely attend a local park where people play blitz so that he could take on me in the same line again.
To be continued
Episode 1: It has begun!
Episode 2: Epic fail
Episode 3: Moscow IM-norm tournament: analysis
Episode 4: Moscow IM-norm tournament: analysis-2
Episode 5: Moscow IM-norm tournament: analysis-3
Episode 6: World Chess-Poker Championship: analysis-1
Episode 7: World Chess-Poker Championship: analysis-2
Episode 8: Comeback in Saratov-1
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