Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Double Swindle

Black to play.  Is there anything worth trying?
White to play.  Should he accept a draw?

I have annotated the game Mangion - Goeller, Kenilworth Chess Club Championship 2011, from the third round this past Thursday.  It's not a pretty game and I clearly should have lost.  But I was saved by an amazing double swindle.  In the first diagram above, I played the tricky 19...Be7!? to which Ian immediately responded (as I had hoped) 20.Qxe5! when quickly followed 20...Bg5+ 21.Bxg5 Rxe5.  But that was only half the swindle.  The more important part was that as I took his Queen off the board, I offered a draw, suggesting that it was a magnanimous gesture toward a worthy opponent who otherwise was killing me.  Ian immediately accepted, too stunned by the surprising turn of events to notice that a draw was not his best option....

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Bc4 looks pretty strong in that final position.

MNb said...

As this aline also can arise via the Pirc: 1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Be3 Bg7 5.Qd2 0-0 6.0-0-0 Nc6 7.f3 e5 8.Nge2 exd4 9.Nxd4, which I play as White, I have some remarkds.
9...Nxd4 10.Bxd4 Be6 11.h4 is more aggressive: c5 12.Be3 Qa5 13.Bh6 b5 14.h5!
Also after 9...Re8 I think 10.h4 better. Black could have answered 10.g4 with d5!
After 10.h4 Ne5 11.Bh6 Bh8 White again can try 12.h5 iso 12.g4.

Anonymous said...

I think one point of g4 is to prevent d5 due to the threat of g5.

MNb said...

9...Re8 10.h4 d5 11.exd5 is good for White. At the other hand 9...Re8 10.g4 d5 11.g5 Nh5 12.Nxd5 Nxd4 is unclear, so it is rather the other way round.