Yet more from the climactic Capital District League matches

Greetings, folks. I thought I'd put up the score of the game on board three of the league match between Schenectady A and Albany A, since our regular reporter, Bill Little, didn't have the game score at his disposal. This was a game driven less by calculation or tactics than by general concepts, at least in my perception, so my annotations will focus more on the general ideas of the game, as well as the progress of my thoughts during it, which may be interesting in the competitive context. I think it may also be useful to point out something about the choice of opening, especially since most of our readers here are amateur players. This is better said here than in the course of the game commentary, where it would just make for clutter.

The Scheveningen Sicilian is rather neglected at the club level these days--I hardly ever see it played among non-masters. Theoretician Lubomir Ftacnik refers to it as not merely a variation, but a whole world containing a great many ideas; and Jaan Ehlvest maintains in his autobiography that the Scheveningen leads to many of the basic positions that one has to understand in order to play most Sicilian variations as Black. I haven't made up my mind yet as to how far this applies to the 'anti-Sicilian' lines, but as far as the Open Sicilians are concerned, the more I think about it, the more it seems to me that Ehlvest is right. This has nothing to do with the question of transposition between variations, which is very common in Scheveningen move orders, but rather the fact that the Scheveningen lines show you ideas that apply to almost all of the Open variations. I am coming to think of the Scheveningen as being at the core of the Open Sicilian in general, with many of the other main variations--Najdorf, Classical, Taimanov, Kan, even the Sveshnikov to some extent--forming a sort of conceptual network around it, which in turn can be organized into subregions around certain structural themes. So if you understand the Scheveningen, you know a fair amount intuitively about all of these others as well, even before digging into their independent theory.

With these views in mind, I decided some time ago to go back to basics with the Sicilian, and insofar as I have any time for opening study these days, when I am working on Sicilian matters, the bulk of my effort is going into the Scheveningen now. I encourage you to consider the merits of such an approach for yourself, if learning the Sicilian Defense is a goal of yours.

Now, to the game:

Wright,Timothy (1920) - Sells,Philip (1986)
Capital District League (7), 23.06.2011

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6
For this last match, our team needed a win to have a chance at the league title, so I chose a line that would give plenty of opportunity for me to play for a win with Black.

3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6 6.Bb5+
For White players interested in challenging for the greatest possible advantage in this opening, the variations of current interest will generally be 6.g4, the Keres Attack--I have gotten this most often from master opponents--or 6.Be3, the English Attack. Other major ways to play against the Scheveningen with White are the main line with Be2 or setups with an early f2-f4, which are perfectly fine. Or if you want something nice and sharp, you can go for the Bc4 arrangements (Fischer/Sozin/Velimirovic). The line chosen in this game is no challenge for Black because its main effect is to make Black's development easier than usual.

6...Bd7 7.Bxd7+
7.Qe2 has been played occasionally without making any extraordinary impact. Black's best reaction seems to be simply to gain space with 7...a6 8.Bxd7+ Qxd7, after which he has no complaints.

7...Qxd7
7...Nbxd7 is also perfectly fine, but it seems to me that with the light-squared bishops having been traded, it's not as important for Black to hang back with this knight on d7. If White has a bishop on b3, for example, this knight very often goes to c5 to get rid of it.

Also, one natural way for Black to develop his light-squared bishop in a structure like this is to put it on the long diagonal; putting his knight on d7 instead of c6 keeps these two pieces from interfering with each other. But since the light-squared bishops have been exchanged, neither of these points applies.

8.0–0 Nc6 9.Be3 Be7 10.f4 0–0 11.Nxc6
11.Qf3 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 a6 is equal.

11...Qxc6 12.Qf3 Rfc8
I obviously want a rook on the c-file, but in order to use the queen's rook, I would probably need to play ...a7-a6 first. I was trying to avoid this in order not to have to waste a tempo. There was also the idea of playing either ...Bf8 or ...Ne8 as needed, depending on how White chooses to attack. Also, there is a prophylactic motive: considering that I would like to play ...b7-b5 soon, with this rook now on c8, my queen will be defended in case White tries for any trick based on the e4-e5 discovery.

13.f5
This is perfectly sensible, trying to expose the drawback of Black's previous move, which left f7 weak. I was actually wondering if I had overlooked something, when it dawned on me that I could defend f7 from along the second rank.

13...Bd8!?
I was irritated to find that the normally desirable move 13...d5 loses a pawn after something like 14.fxe6 dxe4 15.exf7+ Kxf7 16.Nxe4.

After the text, though, if I need to, I can play either ...Rc7 or ...Qd7 to cover the f7 invasion point. In any case, White's attack isn't quite fast enough, because he has no way to quickly force my knight to leave f6, which needs to happen in order for White to really use his battery on the f-file. My other intention here was ...Bb6 to get rid of another of White's important attacking units, the dark-squared bishop.

14.fxe6 fxe6 15.Kh1?!
15.Qh3 would have been logical and was what I had been spending some of my time thinking about after 13.f5, but it's adequately dealt with by 15...d5 leading to an equal position. Having seen this idea was actually what decided me in favor of 13...Bd8. One other consequence of exchanging the light-squared bishops so early is that White can't put much pressure on the e6-pawn.

The game move avoids the exchange of bishops, but gives me a chance to undermine the center. It took me some time to convince myself that this would work.

15...Ba5
The e4-pawn is frequently a target for Black's pieces in Scheveningen structures. Here, White has no good way to defend it.

16.Bd2 Rf8
It's interesting that White opened the f-file, but now Black is benefiting from it.

17.Qe2 Bxc3 18.Bxc3 Qxe4
I was in more of a hurry than I needed to be: an interesting point that I didn't notice at the time was that Black can play to restrict White's bishop with 18...e5! since White still can't save his e-pawn due to the weakness of his back rank: 19.Rae1 (19.Rfe1 Nxe4 is even worse for White because now he has to worry about Black invading on f2 as well) 19...Nxe4!.

19.Qd2
White certainly won't be happy in the endgame, so he has to avoid the exchange of queens.

19...Nd5
I spent a fair amount of time here trying to think of a good way to plant the knight on e4, which seems like its natural destination, together with ...d6-d5 to cement it on its outpost and block the central files so that White's rooks can't use them to get counterplay. The problem with such a scheme is that the dark squares would get very weak for Black then, e5 in particular, so White could get play on that basis. Consequently, I felt that the exchange of the last minor pieces had to be forced so that the bishop would no longer be around to trouble me. In order to keep my opponent from having the time to save his bishop while also minimizing the speed of his counterattack against my central pawns, I felt obliged to choose this less desirable placement of the knight.

20.Rxf8+ Rxf8
Time left: White 31 mins, Black 21 mins. By this time, Barnes and Perry had drawn their game, I believe.

21.Re1 Nxc3 22.Qxc3 Qf5?!
I got myself down to 4 minutes remaining with this move, compared to 29 minutes for my opponent. A better idea would have been 22...Rf2, again using White's back-rank weakness, but I must have thought there would be some problem for me after 23.Qc8+ Kf7 24.Qd7+ Kg6, which doesn't seem to be the case in retrospect. Other decent ideas here were 22...e5 and 22...Qd5. Time pressure was starting to nag me.

23.h3 e5 24.Qb3+ Qf7 25.Qa3 Qf2 26.Qb3+ Rf7 27.Rd1 Qf6?!
27...Qc5 again was a better idea. My extra pawn is now lost. The concept of White finding compensation by attacking my central pawns has been in the game ever since 15...Ba5, and now we see it bearing fruit.

28.Qd5 Kf8 29.Qxd6+ Qxd6 30.Rxd6
This endgame is pretty equal--White has an active rook to compensate for his king being somewhat out of play. My opponent still had a big lead on the clock--times remaining were about 23 minutes to 3 minutes. I would argue that the position is easier for me to play than for my opponent, so the time disadvantage didn't hurt me much.

30...Rf1+ 31.Kh2 Ke7 32.Rd2 h5
Anticipating White's attempt to activate his king through g3, as well as removing one potential weakness from the second rank.

33.Kg3 Rf4 34.Re2 h4+ 35.Kh2 Ke6 36.g3
I think this is a reasonable idea, to try to break a path for White's king toward the center while reducing my kingside space advantage.

36...hxg3+ 37.Kxg3 Rf1
The game still felt rather even to me at this point. My goal for the moment is to try to keep White's king from reaching the center while inching my passed pawn down the board. White is active enough, though, that he should be able to keep my king out; and White has only one real weakness that he needs to keep watch on, that being the h3-pawn.

38.c4 Rc1 39.b3 Rf1 40.Kg2 Ra1
White has to be careful about committing his rook to anything active because of the weakness of his queenside pawn chain. He is managing that well enough by leaving his rook where it is now.

41.Kf3 Kf5 42.Kg2 e4 43.Rf2+ Ke6
43...Ke5 is playable because White's a-pawn hangs if White uses his rook on the seventh rank.

44.Kg3 g5 45.Kg4?
This ruins the game for White--his king will be marooned on the edge of the board until it is too late. In spite of his big advantage on the clock--still something like 20 minutes to 3--White played too quickly here, probably encouraged by the fact that I had necessarily been playing at blitz tempo for some time. Black will now effectively be playing with an extra piece, namely his centralized king, which will make the win easy. Generally, the king needs to be centralized in the endgame as much as possible. White's king was not in a bad place on g3, so he should have played 45.Rd2, for example, continuing to focus on keeping my king from invading. With that approach, he would probably have held the draw, since it's not so easy for me to make progress in such a position.

45...Rg1+ 46.Kh5 Ke5 47.Kg6 e3 48.Rf7 Ke4 49.Re7+
There is no chance for White after 49.Rxb7 e2 50.Rxa7 e1Q 51.Re7+ Kf4 52.Rxe1 Rxe1, either.

49...Kd3 50.Rd7+ Kc3 51.Re7 Kd2 52.Rd7+ Ke1 53.Kf5 e2 54.Ke4 Kf1
0–1
The rest of the story of that night has been made clear by Bill's previous posts.