UIA OPEN 2009 REVISITED

I participated in the recent UIA Open 2009. The quality of my games was not up to the best, nevertheless, I did produced some sparkling victories. Despite losing to the FM Nicholas Chan, I had played well, but only failed to deliver the final punch during the critical point. Before that, this was my best game in that tournament:-

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4

This is known as The Keres attack. After the game, my opponent informed me that he had not known this.

6...e5 7.Nf5?!

At home, after consulting GM John Nunn's recipe in BTS3, I discovered that 7.Bb5+ is correct

7...g6 8.g5

Onced, I used to retreat 8.Ne3? and eventually lost. This defeat cost me the title of Kolej Islam Champion (Double round robin rematch) which I had won the first series 7 round swiss earlier.

8...gxf5 9.exf5?! Bxf5

After the game, my opponent claimed that he believe, if he could defend, than he could keep the extra piece safely. He may be right, but it is difficult in practise to realise such ambition.

10.Qf3 Qd7 11.gxf6

Here, I regained the extra piece with innitiative

11... Nc612.Be3 h5

setting a trap if I proceeded with 13.0-0-0 Bg4! wins the exchange.

13.h3 Bxc2!?

My opponent took the bait.

14.Rc1 Bf5 15.Bb5 a6 16.Ba4 Be6 17.Bb6!

This keep black's armies bottled in further.

17...Rc8

18.Nd5 Bxd5 19.Qxd5 Qe6

It is difficult to imagine such a move, which is a natural attempt to ease the pressuse by offering Queens trade was a decisive blunder.

20.Rxc6!!

After this, there is no defence.

20...Kd7

The main line 20...Qxd5 loses to 21.Rxc8 double checks and mate!

21.Rxd6

Double check and mate 1-0

Good references for this opening system:-

1. Beating The Sicilian 2 and 3 - John Nunn

2. Sicilian e6 and d6 / Sicilian Scheveningen - Kasparov & Nikitin

The National Age Group 2009 had just ended. I was not involved directly or indirectly - I simply too busy with my personal and family matters. However, I did visit my friend, Wan Ismail Wan Yusof who had travelled all long way from Kota Bharu, just to accompany one of his sons, Wan Muhd Imran who contested in this tournament.

When I met him and his son, it was already at the end of round 4. So we had some beverages refreshment and we proceeded to our main business, that is transaction of some chess books.
Wan Ismail bought "Beating The Caro Kann" wrote by Vassilios Kotroniasbecause he said that, his son has the trouble facing the solid like rock Caro Kann and yet there is so few players in Kelantan who adopts it regularly.

In the end, I sold 3 books to him because he badly needs some books as references for his son, including one of my personal books (not meant for my business) that is Sicilian Accelerated Dragon publlished by Batsford.

After that I helped him to get the bus tickets at the Putra Bus Station for him and his son to return to Kota Bharu the next day. Subsequenytly we returned to his room at the Pearl Hotel. There, while having light meals, I, by off hand, gave free chess consultation to his sons as regards to :-
i)the opening strategy and most common opening traps
ii)my personal pass experience,
iii) knowing the opponent strategy
iv) style of the great players - Karpov, Tal, Fischer, etc.

I stopped at about 11.30 pm when I had to go back to my house and wished him and his son good luck ( I still do not know the achievement of Wan Muhd Imran up to the point I am writing here in this blog)

Below is a part of Wan Muhd Imran's game which we discused briefly:
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e6 7.f3 b5 8.Qd2


Here I explained that, the sharpest is actually 8.g4 whereby black must choose between:-
a) the sharp and quick Queenside counterplay approach by 8..Nfd7 follows by Nb6 and N8d7, Bb7, Rc8 etc; or
b) the temporary stopper 8..h6

In the actual game Wan Muhd Imran played something like 8...Bb7 9.0-0-0 Be7 . (Well I do not remember exactly the move order, but it is something like this, whereby I had to critic the move Be7 as this is normally delayed) The game sontinued (after g4 ) with Nfd7 follows by Nb6, N8d7 and Rc8 without touching the f8 Bishop yet. And now, any act leaving the knight on c3 (example Qf2) is naturally answered by the thematic exchange sacrifice Rxc3 follows by Na4, Qa5(or c7), Ndb6 or Ndc5 , 0-0 follows by Rc8 pressuring white's shattered Queenside. (See for example Movsesian vs Kasparov; Bosna Super GM Sarajevo 2000)

Well, as my explanation was made off hand, therefore, I cannot produce all the details of analysisi here. However, readers who love to play the English attack against Sicilian Najdorf Scheningen or the defender of Najdorf Scheveningen on the blackside may look into the details from the following books:-

1. The English Attack - Sammalvuo Tappani
2. Play The Najdorf Scheveningen Style (EVERYMAN)
3. Kasparov's Greates Games Vol 2 (Igor Stohl) - GAMBIT

Chess video mentioned on
[Letsplaychess.com Chess video forum]

Exchange sacrifice on c3 in Sicilian: Movsesian-Kasparov