17. Kevin Bonham v Dougy [1-0]

[Dougy]

I think I'll resign this one too. Fritz gives is a -7.00 (or worse) evaluation and every line I look at leads to trouble.

Well done. I got into trouble move 1 when I typed "e6" instead of "c6" by mistake. After then I copy/pasted all the moves. In an attempt to avoid French lines I ended up in a fairly bad position.

[Desmond]

That's a bit of a shame, I was interested to see how white would break the position down.

[Capablanca-Fan]

That's a bit of a shame, I was interested to see how white would break the position down.

Probably play the R to d7 attacking both f7 and d6, then bring the K up to c6. If Black does nothing, White will play Rxd6 and easily win the P endgame. But if Black plays ... Kxf5 then Rxf7+ Kg4 and if ... Kxh5, then Rg7 cutting the K off from the passed f-P.

[Kevin Bonham]

That's a bit of a shame, I was interested to see how white would break the position down.

There are quite a few options. The most direct plans I was finding primarily involved taking my king for a walk over towards the a-file with the idea of booting his bishop off the effective defence of the d-pawn (a point being that any exchange sac he allows will win). The domination of the bishop is a key threat in many lines. In some lines I allow him to take my front f-pawn in exchange for his d-pawn because the position is easily won after that.

Thanks for the game Dougy. One alternative for French-avoidance is a Benoni setup with 3...exd5 but this is not to everyone's tastes either.

There was one tactical try of sorts for black and that was 13...Nd3 14.Re3 Nxf2 15.Kxf2 Ng4+ 16.Kg1 Nxe3. Two knights for rook and pawn has got to favour white and Fritz called it about +1 but it does at least unbalance the position materially as an alternative to a very difficult defence with equal material.

That said I had to examine a lot of lines very closely as you were holding the line at around +1 for dozens of moves and at some stages it was not that easy to find plans that would not start to fizzle out.

[Aaron Guthrie]

Dougy gets all the interesting conditional moves! In this game instead of accepting Dougy's conditional, Kevin responded with a different move and a conditional which came to the same thing, but via different moves.

[Desmond]

Thanks gents. Both plans look good. I think Jono's is simpler.

[Dougy]

I didn't realize there was such an audience. This notion of "planning" is a bit strange when you've got Fritz next to you looking 27 ply ahead (in this position). (:

[Capablanca-Fan]

I didn't realize there was such an audience. This notion of "planning" is a bit strange when you've got Fritz next to you looking 27 ply ahead (in this position). (:

What did it come up with then?

[Kevin Bonham]

Dougy gets all the interesting conditional moves! In this game instead of accepting Dougy's conditional, Kevin responded with a different move and a conditional which came to the same thing, but via different moves.

That one was a very interesting moment. Dougy offered "if 23. axb4 Nxe4 then if 24. Rxe4 Nf6" and I chose instead "23. Nxf6+. If 23...Nxf6 24.axb4". If I accept Dougy's line and play 25.Re1 then the positions are identical so the question for the observer is why did I take the option of playing, say, 25.Re2 off the table for myself.

Firstly, I noticed my computer was giving initially very similar evaluations to 23.Nxf6+ g5 as to 23.Nxf6+ Nxf6 but on much further analysis 23...g5 turned out to be quite a bit worse for black. So I wanted to see if my rejection of the conditional and offering of a nearly identical conditional might prod the opponent into seeing an opportunity to punish me for my pedantry by varying, but with a move that was actually inferior. (Not to my great surprise, he didn't fall for it.)

Secondly I spent ages looking at 25.Re1 vs 25.Re2 in Dougy's proposed line and came to the conclusion that 25.Re2 was under a bit of a cloud - the reason being, ironically enough, ...g5. In the line 25.Re2 g5 26.Be3 Qc7 27.Rc2 Qc8 white has less options than are on the table in the same line with 25.Re1 and 27.Rc1 because black is threatening to play ...Qf5 which could gain tempo by hitting c2 if white's queen has stopped defending that square.

This was enough of a difference for me to eventually decide to give up the opportunity to vary from the 25.Re1 line just for the sake of putting an option for my opponent to vary incorrectly on the table.

[Kevin Bonham]

What did it come up with then?

It was giving the greatest pluses quickly for the sort of idea I mentioned but there's no doubt your method wins easily as well (and is simpler to explain).

[Dougy]

What did it come up with then?

Well I didn't memorise it. (: It seems to be one zugzwang after another until finally White wins the d-pawn and wins easily. The bishop is almost trapped.