Club Night - 16th May 2022

Crawford Macnab

16 May 2022

Three graded games were played on Monday 16th May 2022.

Wins for Charles, Eric and Stuart.

16th May 2022

Adam is just starting his over the board chess career having played a lot of online chess. One of the challenges of playing e5 against e4 is that there are a lot of different white openings to face. This is one of the reasons I stopped playing e5!

Eric knows his opening theory (and themes) very well and unfortunately in position below Adam ventured 7..d5 which although it does challenge the centre and opens lines for black white squared bishop it is not the best move. White took pawn on d5, castled and with Qb3 got a good attack going.

The correct move was to capture the offered e4 pawn with Nxe4 but if you don’t know the theory it can be hard to work this all out at the board!

Richard and Stuart played a French Defence where white had an advanced pawn on e5. The focus of the game was around this e5 pawn with black tryng to win it and white looking to defend it. Engine suggests that white should just have ignored this pawn and expanded on queen side with b5 and c4.

Gerry and Charles played a Ruy Lopez with white having more space and classic pawns on e4 and d4. It looked like white could create some threats against the black king but engine suggests a better approach was to place knight on d5 to support pawn to f4 and fight for the black squares. In the end white lost the pawn on d5 and entered a knight and pawn ending. At move 40 he missed a chance to setup an entry barrier with king and knight.

Brown, Gerry

Gunn-Russell, Charles

0-1

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Bc5 6. d3 d6 7. h3 h6 8. c3 b5 9. Bb3 Bb6 10. Nbd2 O-O 11. Re1 Kh8

 

Plans for future f5 push

 

12. Nf1 Ng8 13. Be3 Be3 14. Ne3 Nge7 15. d4 Bd7 16. Qd2 Qe8 17. Rad1

 

Bishop on d7 now threatened after exchanges on e5

 

17... Ng6

 

Further defends e5.

 

18. Nf5

 

Computer prefers d5 for this knight but does have hope of some kingside threat. [18. de5 Nge5 19. Ne5 Qe5 20. Nd5 Rac8 21. f4 Qh5 22. Bc2 Qh4 23. Qd3 f5 24. Qd2]

 

18... Kh7 19. de5

 

[19. Ng5 Looked interesting to offer knight to get access to king 19... Kh8 (19... hg5 20. Qg5 Threatens Qh5 check and taking knight on g6 20... Nce7 (20... Bf5 21. ef5 Nf4 22. Qh4 Kg8 23. de5 de5 24. g3 Qe7 25. Qe7 Nh3 26. Kg2 Ne7 27. Re5 Nf2 28. Kf2) 21. de5 de5 22. h4 Be6 23. h5 Nf5 24. ef5 Bb3 25. fg6 fg6 26. ab3 Rf5 27. hg6 Qg6 28. Qg6 Kg6) 20. Nf3 Kh7 Would black want to repeat moves?!]

 

19... Nce5 20. Ne5 Qe5

 

Black fighting to control black squares

 

21. Qd5 Qd5 22. Bd5 Rab8 23. Ng3 Be6 24. Ne2

 

Still ok but white becoming more passive

 

24... Rfe8 25. Nd4 Bd5 26. ed5 Nf4 27. Nf3

 

White needs to keep pieces more active, this allows black to get edge [27. Nc6 Re1 28. Re1 Rb6 29. Ne7 Nd3 30. Re2 b4 31. c4]

 

27... Re1 28. Ne1 Re8 29. Nf3

 

[29. Kf1 Fight to prevent black accessing e2 29... Re5 30. Rd4 Nd5 31. f4]

 

29... Re2 30. Rd2 Rd2 31. Nd2 Nd5

 

Black nets pawn, will be tough for white to hold now

 

32. g3 Nb6 33. b3 Kg6 34. Kg2 Kf6 35. Kf3 Nd5 36. c4 Nc3 37. cb5 ab5 38. a3 Ke5 39. Ke3 d5 40. f4

 

[40. Kd3 Chase the knight? 40... Na2 (40... b4 41. ab4 Ne4 42. Nf3 Kd6 43. Ke3 Ng5 44. Nd4 Nh3 45. Nf5 Kc6 46. Ng7) 41. b4 Nc1 42. Kc2 Ne2 43. Nf3 Ke4 44. Nd2 Kd4 45. Nf3 Kc4 46. Nd2]

 

40... Kd6 41. g4 c5 42. Kd3 d4 43. Ne4

 

Only chance was to keep knights on, pawn ending will lose quickly

 

43... Ne4 44. Ke4 g6 45. h4 f5 46. gf5 gf5 47. Kd3 Kd5 48. a4 ba4 49. ba4 c4 50. Kd2 Kc5