The British Chess Magazine
509
Game of the Month
GM David Howell
[email protected]
Hi, everyone, and apologies
for my absence in recent issues. This month we shall look
at one of my games from the
British Championship. It was
played in a crucial round and was probably
my most creative effort. One spectator even
commented afterwards that I had ‘broken
all the rules’! And, indeed, we shall see
many unorthodox themes throughout. To
provide a backdrop, I should mention that
my general tournament strategy consisted
of avoiding any direct opening preparation (I played four different first moves as
White), and for most of my games I managed to take any tactics out of the position,
often playing with minimal risk. Anyway, let
us begin.
G DWL Howell
O PK Wells
British Championship, Torquay, 2013
English A13
[Howell]
1 c4
The English Opening seemed appropriate for
this tournament.
1…e6 2 g3 d5 3 g2 d×c4
With a rare move order, we have avoided any
Nimzo-Indian or Catalan mainlines. Peter is
known to have a strong opening repertoire, so
this was probably a good practical decision on
my part. However, much to my embarrassment,
I was already out of theory by move 3; not
something that can usually be recommended!
4 a3!?
Another rare move, breaking several rules that
we are taught as children. White places the
knight on the rim, allows his pawns to be doubled, and speeds up his opponent’s development. On the bright side, Black feels obliged to
give up the bishop pair; a high price in modern
chess…
Far more common is 4 a4+, and regular
readers of this column will remember a similar
opening in the game Howell–Hawkins, British
Championship, 2012.
4…×a3 5 b×a3 e7 6 b2
Not quite new, but an important positional
idea. After the game I was pleasantly surprised
to find that this move was actually suggested
by Mihail Marin in his excellent books on this
opening, and he even awarded it an exclamation mark. Unfortunately I had been beaten to
this novelty a few months prior to this game.
Black’s sole problem, as with many openings, is
his light-squared bishop, and therefore White
must try to prevent the freeing e6–e5. There
is no immediate hurry to regain the c-pawn,
and meanwhile those two bishops are feeling
happy on their dream diagonals.
The hasty 6 a4+ gives White no advantage:
6…bc6 7 ×c4 (7 b2 0–0 8 f3 allows 8…
b5! 9 ×b5 b8) 7…e5! and Black solves the
problem of his bishop: 8 b2 e6 9 c2 0–0
10 f3 f6 11 0–0 f5 with chances for both
sides.
6…0–0 7 c2 bc6 8 f3
Again preventing Peter from pushing his epawn. Or so I had thought…
8…e5!?
An ambitious move, which nearly succeeds in
solving Black’s problems. This was condemned
in various reports, but in fact it makes a lot of
sense. My hypermodern approach has given
me a grip over the centre (with pieces, rather
than pawns), so Black sensibly reacts by striving for activity before I can castle.
8…b5 is the obvious alternative, trying to