Our tenth match of the season was an away match against South Bristol A on 19th February. Considering the score was 0.5-5.5 when we last played South Bristol, we were hoping to do better this time. Because this match was during a reading week, we needed one sub: Alex from the C Team, who won his previous game as a sub. We received a warm welcome when we arrived and everything started smoothly, so I’ll cover the games in the approximate order that they finished.
Board 6
Ismail had Black on Board 6 and his game started with a Dutch Réti. White castled long and soon launched a kingside attack with 13. h4, sacrificing the g2 pawn. Ismail bravely grabbed the pawn with 13… Qxg2 and White proceeded to active the d1 rook on the g-file and tried to exploit the awkward placement of Ismail’s queen by pressuring via the queenside with 16. Qc4.
Ismail replied with 16… Bd7, which appears to hold everything together at first glance, but this allows the very strong move 17. d5. Instead, Ismail should have defended with 16… Qe8 or given up the c-pawn entirely with 16… Nf6, but neither of those moves feel good to have to make. The problem after 17. d5 is that the bishop on b2 now sees g7 so there is a colossal threat of 18. Rxg7+. Simultaneously, the d5 pawn attacks both the c6 and e6 pawns, and it is certainly impossible to defend all three pawns. Because of this, White soon achieved a completely winning position.
White should have simply played 21. Qxc6 here, or otherwise kept the tension, since it’s hard for Ismail to untangle and he would be left down a pawn. After 21… Bd7, there’s the unrealistic but nonetheless flashy tactical sequence 22. Rxg7+ Kxg7 23. Bxf6+ Bxf6 24. Rg2+ Kf7 25. Qxd7+, at which point Black is on the verge of getting mated or incurring significant material loss. In the game, White gave up the monstrous bishop on b2 with 21. Bxf6, which objectively loses the entire advantage after 21… Bxf6 because the bishop on f6 is an excellent defender and Ismail’s position isn’t as cramped as it was.
A few moves later, however, in the above position, Ismail played 26… Rec7 and fell victim to the fatal tactic 27. Rxg7+. Ismail’s only move was 26… Qf6, sufficiently defending both g7 and the bishop. In the game, Ismail lost a lot of material after 27… Qxg7 28. Qxe6+ Kh8 29. Rxg7 Kxg7, ending up down 3 pawns and with 2 rooks for a queen and a knight. White converted smoothly and Ismail eventually got checkmated.
Board 5
Jake had White on Board 5 and his game started with the Wing Gambit in the Sicilian. While he got a lead in development out of the opening, his position quickly became dubious after he sacrificed his active bishop and knight for a rook and a pawn on f7. As a result, Black obtained a considerable advantage and launched a queenside attack that resulted in a passed b-pawn.
This tactic very much worked in Jake’s favour because Black lost almost all of the advantage here by giving up the b-pawn with 24… Qxd4 25. Qxb5. Black should have played 24… exd4, although this damages Black’s pawn structure so it is understandable to be hesitant to do this. Despite the restoration of the material balance with the loss of the b-pawn, after 25… Ra2, Jake’s position was still very difficult to play accurately.
The engine wants 26. Qb8+ Kh7 27. Rf3 to keep d3 defended for now and prevent the rook on a2 from infiltrating on the first rank using the c-rook, which can go to c7 or c8 when needed. In the game, Jake opted for a similar approach with 26. Rc8+ Kh7 27. Qb8, with the key difference being that the c-rook has already been committed to c8.
In the resulting position, Black’s only options are 27… Bg8 and 27… Ng8. The latter loses the whole advantage because of 28. Qb7, with the idea to attack the bishop, which doesn’t have any good squares, therefore baiting the rook back to a7 where it no longer pressures the White king. The former, however, was played in the game and this maintains the advantage because White’s counterattack runs out of steam and the d3 pawn is hanging. In fact, the best move is the horrible-looking 28. Qb1. Jake instead tried 28. Rf3, which loses to 28… Ra1 because, with the rook on c8 and not c1, there’s the tremendous threat of 29. Qg1+. In the hope of a perpetual, Jake sacrificed material, but Black forced a knight-up endgame, so Jake resigned.
Board 1
I had White on Board 1 and my game started with the Pirc Defence. It became apparent early on that we were going to have a slow manoeuvring game, so I rerouted by b1 knight to g3 and unknowingly played exactly what is in my prep for the first 10 moves. Because of my lead in development and good piece coordination, I knew I couldn’t be worse, so I eventually got bored of all the shuffling around and decided to try to win by opening up the position with 18. d5.
After 18… cxd5 19. Qxd5, the backward d6 pawn is attacked, and I have long-term ideas of rerouting everything to the queenside to increase the pressure. Black defended with the accurate but awkward move 19… Bf8 and I proceeded to reroute my knight to c4.
In the above position, Black wants to get a knight to c5 and it does matter which knight lands there. If Black plays 22… Ndc5, I can play 23. Qb6 immediately and exert significant pressure on Black’s position, whereas if Black plays 22… Nec5, as my opponent correctly did, I can’t play 23. Qb6 because generally cleanly hanging your queen is inadvisable, so I had to give up the bishop pair with 23. Bxc5 Nxc5 before playing 24. Qb6. Black traded queens so I then had to prove my advantage before Black consolidated by getting the remaining 3 pieces off their starting squares.
One notable tactic I had used to try to keep the bishop on c8 for the last few turns was the fact that Bd7 loses an exchange after Bxd7 Rxd7 Nb6, but now I had to try something else. At this point, my advantage was at its peak so far in the game, but I had to find 30. Nb6 with the idea to eventually trade the light-squared bishops on c4, in order to achieve a better endgame. Instead, I played 30. Nfe3, and after 30… Nxd5 31. Nxd5, my opponent finally got the bishop off c8 with 31… Be6 and offered a draw. I declined but the game quickly fizzled out into an opposite-coloured bishops endgame so we soon agreed to a draw.
Board 2
Thomas had Black on Board 2 and his game started with the Exchange Caro-Kann. Before long, the players reached a heavy piece endgame where Thomas was objectively a bit better, despite the material being equal for the moment.
I had a look at Thomas’ game at this point and I thought he should do something like 26… gxh5 27. gxh5 Qh4+ 28. Kg2 Kh8, with the idea to attack with 29… Rg8, which the engine graciously confirms is strong. In fact, the engine doesn’t even want White to take back the pawn on h5 and prefers reinforcing the g4 pawn, although White admits to losing a pawn here. Thomas was looking at this sort of thing too but he ultimately decided to play 26… Kf8 with the idea to keep the king safe on e7 and attack on the g- and h-files. However, after 27. Rh1 Ke7 28. Kg3 gxh5 29. Rxh5, Thomas was in a lot of trouble due to White’s semi-open h-file and the weak h7 pawn. With little choice, after the queens were traded, Thomas was eventually forced to give up the h7 pawn, which made his position objectively completely losing.
Converting this is not so easy, however. The cleanest win is probably 40. Rg7 Ke8 41. Rhh7 Rb7 and then the brutal pawn sacrifice 42. f5 exf5 43. e6, which wins the f7 pawn, at which point Black’s position entirely collapses. The only way to avoid this without giving up f7 is by playing fxg6 at some point, but White’s doubled rooks on the 7th rank would surely spell doom for Black. Instead of any of this, White traded into a still-winning rook endgame with 40. Rxf7+ Rxf7 41. gxf7 Kxf7. However, Thomas has a penchant for getting rook endgames in classical, so his opponent had inadvertently ventured onto Thomas’ home turf.
Regardless, the winning plan is 43. Kg4, which threatens to march the king even further up the board, so 43… Kg6 is necessary. Then, the only winning move is the very difficult-to-find temporary pawn sacrifice 44. f5+. After 44… exf5+ 45. Kf4, the threat is 46. Rg2+, which forces the king to relinquish its defence of the f5 pawn, and there is no way to stop this. Therefore, perhaps the best way to create counterplay is with 45… d4, but after 46. cxd4 cxd4 47. Rg2+ Kf7 48. Kxf5, the rook endgame is certainly still tricky but objectively completely winning for White. Finding that line would be extremely impressive so White instead played 43. Ke3 and the players soon agreed to a draw.
Board 4
Alex (the B Team player) had Black on Board 4 and his game started with the Alapin Sicilian. White achieved positional dominance early in the game but Alex struck back on the kingside with 16… f5 and 17… f4. Despite the fact that 18. Ne6 forks the queen and a rook, White cannot cleanly win the exchange because of the brilliant move 18… fxe3, which leaves the queen hanging.
If White tries 19. Nxd8, there’s 19… exf2+ and then, wherever the king goes, Black promotes with 20… fxe1=Q. Therefore, White is forced to take back the e3 pawn, so 19. fxe3 was played in the game. While this left White down a knight for only a pawn, White has deadly counterplay on the c-file with a fantastic knight on e6, which isn’t even worth the rook on f8 for the time being. This significant imbalance makes the resulting position very difficult for either side to play accurately.
In the above position, the engine wants 22… Ng3 to attack the e4 pawn and threaten the fork 23… Ne2+. However, Alex played 22… Nf6, which allows the rather strong 23. Ng5. If White tries to simply save the attacked rook with 23… Rf8, after 24. Be6+, White forcibly wins the knight on e7. Therefore, Alex opted for the best response 23… Nxd7. After 24. Nxf7 Nc5, Black had to, and did, find the only move, which is the temporary exchange sacrifice 25. R1xc5. Once the smoke cleared after 25… bxc5 26. Rxe7, White emerged only up a pawn, although White’s positional domination meant that the loss of at least another pawn was imminent.
When White did indeed eventually win another pawn, Alex was objectively somewhat let back into the game. After 31… Rxe4, the knight and the e3 pawn are attacked so 32. Ng4, which threatens a fork on f6, is forced. The engine then claims that Black is very much still fighting after 32… Bg7, although it’s unclear how resilient this defensive setup would be practically-speaking. In the game, Alex played 31… Rxb2, but this proved fatal because of the strength of White’s connected passed central pawns and Black’s inability to blockade them. Eventually, White forced a rook trade and Alex resigned down 3 pawns. With this loss, we had officially lost the match but the last game did not disappoint nonetheless.
Board 3
Alex (the C Team player) had White on Board 3 and his game started with a sort of Indian London. Black played passively in the opening and in fact did not cross the 6th rank until 15… c5. Alex, on the other hand, proceeded to take space with 15… e5, which gave him a healthy advantage. Before long, Alex managed to get a passed d6 pawn, supported by his bishop on h2, and this pawn proved to be quite a thorn in Black’s side.
In the above position, Black decided to, somewhat dubiously, sacrifice a pawn with 22… c4, with the intention to meet 23. Bxc4 with 23… Bxf3 because 24. gxf3 is then forced. Following this, Black performed a rook lift with 26… Rc5 and 28… Rh5 in order to attack the king and, as a matter of fact, this idea quickly yielded results, since Alex missed the strong tactical shot 33… Rxh3.
By far the best response for White is accepting the temporary rook sacrifice because, while 34. Qxh3 loses the queen to the triple royal fork 34… Nxf2+, White gets a fair amount of material back after 35. Kg2 Nxh3 36. Kxh3, and of course the d7 pawn is still exceptionally strong. Instead, Alex played 34. f3, which is good except for one move, which basically wins on the spot. This move is 34… Ng4, which exploits the fact that the f3 pawn is pinned laterally and attacks both the queen and the bishop on h2. There is no way to save both so White’s best try is simply 35. fxg4, but after 35… Rxe3 36. Rxe3, there’s 36… Nf2+, which rather unfortunately wins a rook. Very fortunately for Alex, Black missed this and instead played 34… Ng3+, which allowed Alex to consolidate. However, the game did not calm down for a moment because Alex soon sacrificed the exchange with 38. Rxd5.
This sacrifice actually doesn’t work because of 38… Nh4+, which allows Black to recapture on d5 with the rook on h5. However, Black recaptured immediately with 39. exd5, which loses on the spot to 39… Re8 because White is simply forcibly promoting. Black tried 39… Rg5+ in the vague hope of a perpetual but Alex calmly walked his king to the e-file, at which point Black resigned. That was certainly quite a game.
Summary
In the end, we lost the match 2-4. However, we certainly didn’t get butchered as badly as we did last time. In fact, considering that my half point was all we scored last time, one could say that we did 4 times better, although we were objectively completely dead lost on Boards 2 and 3 at some point, so one could equally argue that we were actually rather close to another 0.5-5.5 affair. Nevertheless, it is nice that that didn’t happen, especially because, after the match, half our team had to wait for a bus in the rain for 35 minutes due to us waiting at the wrong bus stop for a bus that didn’t exist. Anyway, with barely over a quarter of this season’s matches remaining, we need to resume picking up match points if we want to stay in Division 2. Towards that end, we ideally need to draw or beat Downend, and we won’t have to wait long before we get an opportunity to do so, because our next match is an away match against Downend & Fishponds C on 5th March, so the next match report will be posted soon after that.