Volume 40, Number 1
Bittersweet
by Jeffrey Baffo
Caissa is a beautiful and terrible mistress,
dispensing both pleasure and cruelty with
equal delight. Her fickle attentions favor
only those who grasp the true nature of a
chess position and have the skill and determination to follow it. It is a rare game
indeed, where only one of the combatants
has sole possession of the truth in a game,
start to finish. Consequently, in a game
between humans, be they Grandmaster or
GrandPatzer, she is likely to favor one
side and then the other. Standing with you
and then your opponent, and then back
again until your head is spinning and your
hands trembling. So it was in my game
vs. Eric Montany. In the end the laurels
rightly belonged to Mr. M. He saw more
and played better. But for one brief moment in this game, the nymph’s intoxicating smile belonged to me.
Colorado Open, Sept. 2, 2012 / Round 4
White: Jeffrey Baffo (USCF 1866)
Black: Eric Montany (USCF 2196)
Game/90; 30” Increment
Bird’s Opening1
(QNA) NIC VO 12.1 ECO A02
Colorado Chess Informant
it’s good points.
11.fxe5 Forced, lest I be completely overrun.
11...dxe3 12.dxe3 Nxe5 13.e4 Nc7? A
tiny bit of bad luck on the 13th for Eric.
13...Nb6 would have been better. Even
so, his position is perfectly healthy.
14.c3! A good move because it is solid
and gives Eric so many plausible moves,
thereby increasing his chances of making
a mistake. Yes! Strong, highly rated players make mistakes like the rest of u s
slobs2.
14...Ne6? Case in point, the natural
13...Nxf3+ was simple and strong.
Now after...
15.Nxe5 Bxe5 16.Ng4! Black’s cute little
bunny there (aka the dark squared fianchettoed bishop) is caught out of it’s hole.
The hounds are on him quick!
16...Qc7 This is an example of a player
deliberately playing a (slightly) inferior
move in order to complicate the game.
This is a cagey, veteran move and works
because many times it’s better to have a
worse position with complications, than a
slightly better position with clear ideas
for your opponent.
10.a3 e5 Perhaps liquidation in the center
is premature? Building up a little first
with 10...Re8 or 10...b6 could be considered. The aggressive 10...Qb6 also has
Page 24
19...Be6 All is not lost, yet. Give me
time. White still has a strong position, but
gradually goes wrong and tops it off with
a screaming-idiot move.
20.Rad1 f6 21.g4 g5 22.Qf2 b6 23.Bxg5!
The mating combination allows White to
snatch a pawn.
23...Bb3 24.Rd2 Ne6 25.Be3 Ng5
26.Bxg5 fxg5 White is up a pawn, but
Black’s two bishops and overall strong
position makes a win unlikely. But there
is NO position that can’t be lost given
sufficiently stupid play. Once again, I
prove up to the task.
27...Rxf8 28.Rxf8+ Kg7 White has almost enough for the queen, but Eric’s
queen and remaining pieces are a model
of coordination, while mine resemble the
people who closed down the last “Open
Bar” party I attended...
2.f4 There are more radical options here
(2.g4?!!? as well as more solid (2.d4) but
those are topics for a future article!
7.Qe1 d4 8.Nd1 Nc6 9.Nf2 Nd5 The
secret to success in chess; POUND THE
CENTER! Or as I like to put it; play in the
center until there is no play in the center.
My chances for active ideas have shrunk
to practically zero. So I wait, and try to
hold on.
our brief post mortem, it’s clear he saw
this possibility during the game and saw
it very quickly. I had not and was simply
golly-whomped when he unveiled it. Now
after the forced sequence 20...Qxd8
21.Nxf7 CHECK! 21...Kg8 22.Nxd8,
Black is going to be two pawns down and
still under attack. For example; 22...Be6
the sensitive a2-g8 diagonal must be protected, believe it or not there are still mating ideas floating around here. 23.Nxb7
here so Black’s move choice is very limited; 23...Rc8 to protect the lonely soldier
on c5. And the subtle 24.Bb5 locks in
White’s winning advantage.
27.Qxf8+??? Huh? What the heck!
1.Nc3 Nf6 Probably Black’s most flexible
response and the move I most dislike!
Black keeps his options open and has the
best chances to get the game on his
“home ground”.
2...d5 3.e3 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Be2 0–0 6.0–0
c5 We are solidly in the “Classical Bird”
and Eric has won the turf battle. My next
few moves are a confabulation of different ideas within Bird theory. Sadly, I
must admit they do not combine well.
January 2013
29.Rf2 Kxh6 30.c4 Bd4 0-1 Oh well.
For a minute there…
17.Qh4! Ng7 18.Nh6+! Kh8 19.Be3??
Not really a bad move, but fully deserving of the double-query because of what I
missed. The golden possibility here is
19.Rxf7! Rxf7? (19...Bxh2+ is correct,
after which White has a slight to moderate advantage. But what could be wrong
with winning a piece?) 20.Qd8!!! This is
what’s wrong with it! And I am bold
enough to say that move deserves all
three punctuations! To try to give you
perspective on just how good Eric Montany is, judging from what he showed me in
www.colorado-chess.com
¹ Part of the power of the QNA is the ability to transpose into other openings, with
seemingly only infinitesimal differences
between the QNA version and their main
line cousins. The trick is to seek positions
with small but important differences that
you will likely know how to handle much
better than your opponent. In this case I
was outplayed. Eric got things into a
classical Bird that he knew better than I.
2
Their mistakes are usually way less severe and occur way less frequently. Other
than that they’re just as crappy at calculating variations as we are!
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