Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Christiansen-Wojtkiewicz, San Diego 2006

Though the recently competed U.S. Championship in San Diego was won by Alexander Onischuk (U.S. Men's Champion) and Anna Zatonskih (U.S. Women's Champion), it was the 3rd Round game between GMs Christiansen and Wojtkiewicz that attracted the most attention from annotators, mostly because it so well illustrates Christiansen's "Storming the Barricades" theme. There is no question that it is an inventive attacking game, even if less persperation (at the board anyway) than preparation. Here are some links to annotations:

Hans Ree, Op de marinebasis van San Diego NRC.NL (March 21)
Lubomir Kavelek, Chess column Washington Post (March 20)
Jack Peters, Aronian Surprise Victor at Linares LA Times (March 19)
Hector Leyva Paneque, Ataque al rey en el centro en la Defensa Siciliana Inforchess (March 16)
Goran Urosevic, "Storming the Barricades!" Chess News and Events (March 6)
Dennis Monokroussos, Round 3 The Chess Mind (March 6) - click link on left
Round 3 Annotated Games US Championship Website (March 5)

Larry Christiansen even blogged about the game on the US Championship's "Champblog," noting the following (which you can find about halfway down the page):

"Wojo walked into some preparation specifically the move 1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a5 6 Bc4 e6 7 Bb3 b5 8 Qf3 Qc7 9 Bg5 Nbd7 10 0-0-0 Be7 11 e5!? Bb7 12 Qg3 Nxe5 (12…dxe5!?) 13 Bxe6 fxe6 14 f4 which I felt was worth a try. Note that 14 Nxe6?! Qd7 15 Nxg7+ Kf7 is fine for Black. After 14 f4, Black might have considered …Nc4 which leads to wild complications after 15 Nxe6 Qa5 (16…Qd7!?) 16 Nxg7+ Kf7 17 Rhe1! I should not go into too much detail—here but there are ‘chances for both sides'.

"After 14 f4 Ng6 15 Nxe6 Qd7 16 Rhe1 White must have good compensation for the piece. After the subsequent Kf7 17 f5! Nf8 the attack proved decisive after the simple 18 Bxf6 Bxf6 19 Rxd6 Qc8 20 Ng5+ Kg8 (20…Bxg5 21 Qxg5 Qc7 22 f6 Ng6 23 Re7+ wins) 21 Rxf6 pretty much finished matters."

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