I've been looking for a way to get more slow chess practice and it dawned on me today when I saw a completely random announcement that FM joejan was giving a simul. My standard rating is rather high so hopefully I'll get more of the simul givers attention during the games. Anyhow, here is my first game. All comments are without running the game through a computer. I plan on doing that after posting this and then posting again pointing out whatever lines the computer likes that I did not consider.


1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 4. Bb5+



Here is where I pretty much left my opening knowledge. Already I could not decide between Bd7 and Nc6. I had high hopes for my bishop as the h1/a8 diagonal looks like it's going to be very important in this position (after e5 or exd either way) so I wasn't exactly in a rush to trade it off, and that also left the position somewhat less than dynamic. On the other hand, I was concerned about the possible pressure on c5 after Nc6 in positions where bxc6 is forced on Bxc6. He just seems to have ready made pressure with a plan of b3/Na4/Ba3/Rc1/c4. But I figured that plan was somewhat time consuming and thanks to f4 I'll be able to open up his kingside pretty quick to generate sufficient counterplay and my bishops should really shine in the resulting positions. And it just felt like the more dynamic decision and I love unbalanced positions, so I decided on

4. .. Nc6 5. d3

This move seemed particularly weak and I was very happy to see it as it seems he's not particularly interested in the earlier Bxc6/b3/Na4/etc plan which I felt was white's strongest option.

5. .. Nf6

I want to play Qc7. So this is simple development while protecting d5.

6. Nf3 Qc7 7. O-O



7. .. a6

Not an easy move to make. This gives white a very critical tempo that could be dangerous as he has alot of ideas after Bxc6 Qxc6 such as trying to open the e file after Ne5 Qc7 exd or immediately trying to open my kingside with a quick f5. But that said, even though he has alot of dangerous looking ideas - I could not see any way for him to create real threats and I'm all for inducing him to prematurely try to attack.

8. Bxc6+ Qxc6 9. Qe1

Yet again another very relieving move. It was now clear what white's plan was. He wants try to get a kingside attack going against me, likely with e5/etc. I felt like I now had a slight edge as there's no way this plan can be dangerous in this position.

9. .. dxe4

This is a multipurpose move. First is it's just a classical response to white's plan. He wants to attack on the flank, so I plan to play in the center. My king is in the center - but it's not like he can really exploit it so I felt comfortable starting to look for counterplay already. This is also starts to open the game a bit more so my bishops can start to breathe.

10. dxe4 Be7 11. h3

It seems that my starting to open the center has had little impact on the plan he started with Qd1.

11. .. b5



I felt the position was =+ here. Black has alot of central pressure and his bishops are going to be coming to life very soon - whereas it's unclear how white can make much progress.

12. Ne5 Qc7 13. g4

This seemed too optimistic. If my king was on the kingside then maybe this would be 'okay', but as is - this sort of attack is weakening his own king a whole lot more than it's putting mine in danger!

13. .. h5

Attempting to force g5 after which his attack is not really going anywhere. In fact I was also envisioning the possibility of castling kingside after something like white plays g5 and I respond with an eventual g6 creating an oddly safe kingside for me.

14. g5 Nd7 15. Nxd7 Bxd7

I strongly considered playing Qxd7 here. The point is that I'd much much much rather have my light bishop on b7 than c6. On c6 it does nothing but open up possibilities of Nd5 stuff and make it more difficult to get a queen battery down the diagonal. But I felt like Qxd7 just simply didn't work due to all the wasted tempo after Bf4 when white gets Rd1/etc.

16. f5



I think this was a blunder. It does nothing but open up the critical h2/b8 diagonal.

16. .. Bd6

eyeing the juicy e5 square as well as preventing Bf4.

17. fxe6 fxe6 18. a3 O-O-O

A little bit of a difficult move as I did not want to give white any potential counterplay after something like 19. Rf7. But I figured on 19. Rf7 Rdf8 was just very good for me. Taking on g7 is suicidal and the queen can't afford to leave the dark squares around the king loose so I think 20. Rxf8 Rxf8 would be forced which was clearly favorable for me.

19. b4



I think the game is over now. The dark squares were already very weak on the kingside and now suddenly white weakens them on the queenside as well.

19. .. Bg3

I guess this move is tactical but I think it's also extremely thematic/positional. The queen is the only kingside dark square defender. Now thanks to b4?? I can distract her away from the kingside dark squares.

20. Qe3 Be5 21. bxc5 Bc6 22. Kh1 Bd4 23. Qf3



23. .. Rhf8

The final thrust. Once the queen is distracted from the kingside victory is surely close with my bishops and queen bearing down.

24. Qxf8 Bxc3 25. Bf4 Bxe4+ 26. Kh2 e5 27. Qxd8+ Qxd8 28. Rad1 Qe7 29. Be3 Bd4 30. Rfe1 Qxc5 31. Bxd4 exd4 32. Rd2 Qe5+



He resigned here. The final mate is interesting. The black queen finally gets her cherished kingside dark square and the action concludes on all light squares afterwords: Kg1 Qg3+ Kf1 Qxh3+ Kg1 Qh1 Kf2 Qg2#

Well going over the game briefly with Rybka and Fritz neither had much to add. They both really hated 7. .. a6 but as I walked them through the lines both their evaluations kept getting better and better for black. White also had the interesting idea of 15. g6. It's not good or bad - just another idea for some sort of play, but black is fine after 15. .. Nxe5 16. fxe5 o-o the game is still just -+.

Looking over some human games, it seems that white scores much better than average in this line (black is actually a substantial favorite after 3. .. d5 with a score of 44.6%) after 5. Bxc6+!? (where white is scoring 52%) and one strong player fell to a game that went almost exactly like I was fearing with simple pressure on c5. Interestingly enough very few strong players have played 5. Bxc6+, but at the same time very few strong players are willing to play such a mediocre opening as f4 with Bb5+ to start with!

So I'm happy with the game, but plan on exploring the lines after Bxc6+ much more since I just really don't want to face that plan if it is as dangerous as it seems.

Any feedback on the game would be much appreciated!

And here is a dump of the raw moves of the game:

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 4. Bb5+ Nc6 5. d3 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qc7 7. O-O a6 8. Bxc6+
Qxc6 9. Qe1 dxe4 10. dxe4 Be7 11. h3 b5 12. Ne5 Qc7 13. g4 h5 14. g5 Nd7 15.
Nxd7 Bxd7 16. f5 Bd6 17. fxe6 fxe6 18. a3 O-O-O 19. b4 Bg3 20. Qe3 Be5 21. bxc5
Bc6 22. Kh1 Bd4 23. Qf3 Rhf8 24. Qxf8 Bxc3 25. Bf4 Bxe4+ 26. Kh2 e5 27. Qxd8+
Qxd8 28. Rad1 Qe7 29. Be3 Bd4 30. Rfe1 Qxc5 31. Bxd4 exd4 32. Rd2 Qe5+ 0-1

You should be able to just cut+paste this into chessbase or any other software.

The nice thing about GPA players is they're very often one-trick monkeys. Not saying your FM opponent was, but obv with the little time he had to deal with your game, he resorted to typical kingside attacking ideas when they weren't really justified. For others who might consider taking this up as black, I can assure you that at the class level this tendency by white is a bajillion times worse. As black I normally play 2. Nc3 Nc6 and after 3. f4 I play e6 and have a huge score with this line. Very similar ideas to 2. e6.

Specifically about e6 lines. Gawain Jones is probably the strongest regular GPA practitioner. He has written that white should either switch to an open Sicilian or use the double fianchetto setup with f4, Nf3, g3, Bg2, b3, Bb2, 0-0-0, etc. I kinda doubt Nc6 Bxc6 is all that bad for black, but I'll have to try to look up more games when I get home. It seems like 6. d3 Ba6 7 ... c4 should probably be okay. The obv problem is that white has a lot of central/kingside space and easy development so I'm not entirely sure if black has time to take care of the c5 weakness properly. I've used a similar white system as a surprise weapon with 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 e6/g6?! 4. Bxc6 later possibly f4. It scores remarkably well since black has the static weakness at f5 and white's kingside play, especially against g6 lines, is quite good.

Dire - Did you consider 25 ... Rxf8 26. Bxc7 Rxf1+ 27. Rxf1 Bxe4+ 28. Kh2 Kxc7 ? Looks like a simple path to a winning endgame. Obv what you played works well

Gah, way too slow to edit. Forgot to say Congratulations! on your win. It was very nice. I'm particularly impressed with your comments on b4 weakening the dark squares on the queenside. I honestly wouldn't have thought to consider that important at all. Very nice.

Sure did but I felt that I could end the game more quickly by keeping the big pieces on board. The problem for him is just that even after I win material, my forces are more organized than ever so I felt he was going to have a difficult time avoiding mate. I just calculated: 25. .. Bxe4+ 26. Kh2 e5 27. Be3 Bxa1 28. Qf2 Bd4 and I'm up a clean piece and already have the basic idea of Bb7+Qc6 after which mate must surely follow soon.

As for the opening - yeah, I definitely agree that white's setup doesn't have much sting. The double fianchetto ideas sounds much more interesting. The reason I played my exact move order is for the times that white does decide to swap to an open sicilian. I've become quite fond of the Qb6 sicilian, but that doesn't work with Nc6.

And you are definitely right on the Ba6/c4 stuff. In my database white is scoring 70% there, but that's largely since black apparently forgets how to play chess after getting a big advantage. Once nice game was:

[Event "Padova op"]
[Site "Padova"]
[Date "1998.12.13"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Ljubisavljevic, Zivojin Z"]
[Black "Ortega, Lexy"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "2290"]
[BlackElo "2490"]
[PlyCount "121"]
[EventDate "1998.12.??"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "9"]
[EventCountry "ITA"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "1999.11.16"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 4. Bb5+ Nc6 5. Bxc6+ bxc6 6. d3 Ba6 7. Nf3 c4 8.
dxc4 Bxc4 9. Ne5 Ba6 10. Nxc6 Qb6 11. exd5 Nf6 12. Qf3 Rc8 13. Bd2 exd5 14. Ne5
d4 15. Na4 Qb5 16. b3 Rxc2 17. Kd1 Rxd2+ 18. Kxd2 Bb4+ 19. Kd1 O-O 20. Rc1 Nd5
21. Kc2 Ba3 22. Kb1 Bxc1 23. Rxc1 Ne3 24. Nc5 Bc8 25. Nc6 Bf5+ 26. Kb2 Nc2 27.
Ne7+ Kh8 28. Nxf5 Qxc5 29. Qd3 Qa3+ 30. Kb1 Qxa2+ 31. Kxa2 Nb4+ 32. Ka3 Nxd3
33. Rd1 Nxf4 34. Rxd4 Nxg2 35. Rd7 a6 36. Ra7 g6 37. Nd4 Rd8 38. Nf3 f5 39. Ng5
Rd1 40. Nxh7 Kg8 41. Nf6+ Kf8 42. Kb4 f4 43. Nh7+ Ke8 44. Rxa6 f3 45. Rf6 Ne1
46. Kc3 Ke7 47. Rf4 Ke6 48. Rf8 Ke5 49. Ng5 Rd3+ 50. Kc4 Rd4+ 51. Kc3 Rf4 52.
Re8+ Kf5 53. Rxe1 Kxg5 54. Kd2 Rb4 55. Re3 Kf4 56. Rc3 Rd4+ 57. Ke1 Re4+ 58.
Kf1 Re2 59. Rc4+ Kf5 60. h4 Rb2 61. b4 1/2-1/2

Black already had a clear advantage by move 10. Can't ask for much more than that.

[Event "Quito Cup CDP 1st"]
[Site "Quito"]
[Date "2003.10.24"]
[Round "11"]
[White "Palencia, Wilson"]
[Black "Salvador, Carlos"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "B23"]
[WhiteElo "2350"]
[BlackElo "2245"]
[PlyCount "71"]
[EventDate "2003.10.14"]
[EventType "tourn"]
[EventRounds "11"]
[EventCountry "ECU"]
[EventCategory "5"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2004.11.15"]

1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bb5 e6 4. Bxc6 bxc6 5. f4 d5 6. d3 Ba6 7. Nf3 c4 8. exd5
cxd5 9. d4 h5 10. O-O Nh6 11. Qe2 h4 12. Nd1 h3 13. g3 Qb6 14. c3 O-O-O 15. Ne3
g6 16. Bd2 Qxb2 17. Rab1 Qa3 18. f5 gxf5 19. Nc2 Qa5 20. Bg5 Bd6 21. Ne5 Qc7
22. Rb2 Rde8 23. Bf6 Rhg8 24. Rfb1 Ng4 25. Nb4 Bb7 26. Nbc6 Bxc6 27. Rb8+ Qxb8
28. Rxb8+ Bxb8 29. Nxc6 Nxf6 30. Nxb8 Ne4 31. Na6 f4 32. Qb2 Kd8 33. Qb7 Rxg3+
34. hxg3 h2+ 35. Kxh2 Rh8+ 36. Kg2 1-0

Another one where black probably played a bit too ambitiously in the middle game, but even there obtained a crushing position. I'm guessing there was some mutual crazy time trouble towards the end as that just gets ugly.

The idea of Ba6+c4 just didn't come to mind for some reason. I'm quite happy to play Nc6 now!

Thanks alot for the comments!

Hey Dire,

Great game and commentary! I'm not skilled enough to add anything of value. For example I thought that 7...a6 would waste time. I wouldn't have even considered that move!

The main reason for a6 is that after 7. .. Be7 8. Bxc6 Qxc6 there's just a ton of really good ideas for white as after Ne5 he gets a surprisingly strong initiative. I kept calculating and running into good idea after good idea for white, so I did not really want to allow that. Of course after Be7 a6 Bxc6 bxc6 is okay for black, but I still was not particularly fond of bxc6 stuff.

In any case there's a great move that I just completely missed: 5. .. Ne7! I discarded this move fairly quick as 6. ed ed 7. Qe2 seems to just cause black lots of problems but that's not so. Black has 7. .. Qd6 when after 8. Nf3 Bg4 9. O-O O-O-O white is practically forced to play 10. Bxc6 because of the threat of Bxf3 and after 10. .. Nxc6 black is simply better. It takes care of every single problem I was facing in one swoop.