We played on the same team on 87 (Luton A), and were members of the same club in its final year, so let’s see if Board 1 can beat Board 4! (most probably!)
Game on
1. e4 c5. We start with a Sicilian because it offers more counterplay than the French, which I grew rather tired of as the years rolled on by.
2. Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nc6 5. Nc3 Nf6 (note to self: try to remember the correct bloody move order next time please!). Uppsala! Having not played one single game in 8 months, I simply forgot 5. …a6 or 5. …Qc7 are the most playable responses that avoid transposing towards the deluge of open Sicilian theory -clumsy.
6. Ndb5 d6 (almost a necessity and frighteningly transpositional!)
7. Bf4 e5 8. Bg5 a6 9. Na3 b5 10. Nd5 Be7
We have transposed into the Sveshnikov but that’s quite alright as I played it for a few years and read up on it too! But as GM Rowson once said ‘the Sveshnikov is full of holes’. They can appear on both flanks, some caution is needed.
11. Bxf6 Bxf6 12. c4
Yoicks, not the main move, so now I am out of book. Although 12. …Qa5 may look tempting, its not at all, its premature. Black has threats to attend to before any counterattacking ideas can be put into play. I could lose the exchange or a pawn easily if I am not careful. So the plan is to shut things down and shore things up, that way the position should stay in tact – hopefully should! I can’t really tell because I am out of book already, so will stick to the few opening principals I learnt some ten years ago.
12. …b4 (let’s shut things down) 13. Nc2 a5 (and shore things up) 14. Qf3! I chose exclamation mark because I’ve never seen that move before and don’t know why it’s played. Here I play 14. …Be6 because usually the light-squared bishop goes to either e6 or b7 and I never worked out why the latter was the preferable option so, once again, I stuck it on e6, and also because I couldn’t work out what else to do, so blindly follow opening theory and principles I shall but this is really just about as far as I can go, I’m pretty much on my own from now on. I know I may get double f-pawns but that’s okay, all it means is the king should stay in the centre, and that’s okay, its quite safe there with the bishop on e6.
15. Nxf6 (from what I understand this is thematic as black usually ends up with doubled f-pawns)
15. … Qxf6. I spent around 5 minutes thinking about this. In principle, white’s remaining knight is heading to d5, so why would I want to put my queen on f6? I played it because the white queen is on f3, and unless white exchanges, I gain a tempo, which I can lose with, say Qg6, should the knight land on d5. I’m not expecting an exchange of queens.
16. Qxf6 gxf6 17. 0-0-0. Now what do I do?
Much thought required here. Where does the king go? I don’t really want to place it on e7 if a knight can pop into d5. I have to keep my bishop on e6 and exchange off if that happens but if it does, I think my knight is slightly better than white’s bishop as it can stay unchallenged on d4. Do I castle queenside? My rook can gain counterplay on the a-file, do I want to take it off that file?
18. … 0-0-0
Updates to follow
McCreadyandChess 