Analyze This! #2

One of my best wins yet...

Welcome back to the second installment of “Analyze This”! This series is meant to review my classic time control games and see how I did. I mentioned this before but one of the keys to my improvement was playing one slow game each week and then reviewing them both on my own and with my coach. This week’s game you can find here and my analysis here. Just like the first game I analyzed we got the Advanced Caro Kann…but this time I was playing Black. This was a Game 60m+30s. I was playing against a player rated 1905 to my 1653!

Black has two main options here: 3…Bf5 or 3…c5. When I play White against 3..Bf5 I play the Tal Variation of 4.h4 as we saw in the last game. So when I’m on the Black side here, I opt for 3…c5 putting immediate pressure on the center pawn. I knew my opponent’s tendency was to capture the pawn and then try to hang onto it with moves like f4 and Be3.

From here Black plays 3..c5 4.dxc Nc6 5.f4 e6 6.Be3

Black can’t capture the pawn anymore on either e5 or c5. White enjoys a lot of space and Black will need to sort that out to get development…even if Black’s pawn structure is better. Luckily there’s a sneaky move… 6…d4!* Interfering with the defense of the pawn and attacking the Bishop. Black gains a tempo and wins the pawn back with 7.Bf2 Bxc5

(* This line appears to not be the best in the Master’s DB, as sneaky as it is. White appears to have a good record against it -60% White win, 31% Draw, 9% Black win. Black’s main alternative instead after 3…c5 4.dxc is 4…e6 followed by 5.Be3 Nd7. Much better chances 17% Black win, 24% White win, 59% Draw.)

White moved back after 6..d4 7.Bf2 Bxc5. Now both sides try to develop, but White has a pawn deep in their territory. 8.Nd2 Ngd7 follow. In this line it’s critical for Black to get the g8 knight up to d5 to pressure White’s position. It’s also critical to get castled and try to generate counter play against the center White pawns with the classic f6 pawn break later.

White appears cramped. However, believe it or not SF 14 says it’s +0.6 for White here. A slight advantage…but you have to know what to do. We both kept developing but I had pressure on White. Black had the initiative and I needed to use it.

Play continued 9.a3 a6? 10.Bd3 Nd5 11.Qf3 O-O 12.Ne2

(Apparently a6 was not needed according to SF. Better would have been 9…Nd5 or O-O. In fact 9…a6 was where we left theory. We had been following a game between GM Dominguez Perez and GM Navara up until I played a6.)

This was one critical moment of the game and I took some time to work out two main options. Qa5 or f6?

The key to Qa5 was the Knight on d2. It’s only defended by the King and attacking it would have kept the King in the center. It took me some time but I worked out the following critical line after 12…Qa5.

White plays 13.Rd1 to defend the knight and I play 13..Ne3 attacking it and preventing castling. White takes the knight with 14.Bxe3 and I take back 14…dxe3. The pin in still on!

I’ve traded a Knight for a Bishop but am aiming to win more material thanks to the pin. White has a good move here to break the pin, b4! After 15.b4 I can play the intermezzo 15..exd+ 16.Rxe2 Bxb4 17.axb Qxb4. However, Black relieves the tension and almost all their active pieces to win a pawn. White has a much better position after all the trades. I saw that Qa5 was tempting…but losing. So instead I played the only other good move I could see in the position. 12…f6!

Now I took about 7-8 minutes to calculate out the Qa5 line. Time left was White - 50:18 and Black - 47:10. However, White here went into the tank. They thought for around 23 minutes trying to come up with a move. Take a look, see what you come up with.

At the 27:09 mark White played 13.Qh5! with a mate in 1 threat on h7. This was the second critical position in the game. I spent about 12 minutes working out my options. If I played 13..g6 then I expected 14.Bxg6 hxg6 and 15.Qxg6+ with a draw by repetition. Also I didn’t want to play 13...f5 and keep the position closed with 14.g4 to maybe follow. (SF loved this move BTW so what do I know). So I played the dodgy 13…h6 betting that I could defend mate with a Knight after 14.Qg6 Ne7.

Without the Knight, White wins here with Qh7+ Kf7 Bg6+ Ke7 Qxg7+ and Black is lost. However the Knight saves the day! I expected 15.Qh7+ Kf7 but my opponent decided to retreat the Queen with 15.Qg3?? allowing me to break open the position with 15….fxe5! 16.fxe Nf5

The threat of a Knight on e3 was too great. White takes with 17.Bxf5 Rxf5 and then18.Nxd4?

The pawn grab has now exposed White’s King. Also White used up almost all of their time on these last few moves. The clock read: White - 3:50 Black - 37:07 This was the last critical position since White’s King is still in the center. Rxe5 is check but the Queen defends the e5 pawn. I asked where’s the Queen going if instead I play 18..Rg5? She can’t defend the pawn anymore. I knew my opponent was low on time, but I figured they’d play 19.Qh4 trying to pin the Rook to the Queen on d7. Indeed that happened with 1:36 left on their clock!

I found a tactic here which won a piece and won the game. The key is that the Bishop on f2 is serving double duty protecting both the Knight and the Queen. See if you can find the winning move and leave it in the comments below!

From here, I was able to win a piece, trade down material, and pressure my opponent into blunders while they were in time pressure. Ultimately my opponent resigned and I collected my highest rated win ever! While my prep worked in this game, in the future I think I’ll play the sounder line of 4…e6 and 5…Nd7.

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something! Share if you liked it!