SCCA Magazine Spring 2016 | Page 8

Second Place

[ Ed – Tom Matheis couldn ’ t provide his customary in-depth analysis in the time available due to heavy work commitments . I hope he ’ ll send in a full annotation for a later edition . Meantime , you can still enjoy this fine win against a CC GM .]

White : Matheis , Tom ( 2440 ) Black : Bubir , Alex ( 2545 ) [ E58 ] EU / TC10 / sf2 Board 1 , 2015 Nimzo-Indian Rubinstein [ E58 ]

First Place The R . J . Burridge Trophy 2015

White : Bennett , Peter ( 2319 ) Black : Struzka , Vlastimil ( 2215 ) VWC7 – 29 , 2015 Ruy Lopez , Chigorin Defence [ C96 ] [ Notes by Peter Bennett ]

I was pleasantly surprised that this game won the 2015 “ Best Games Prize ”. If any readers are interested enough to play it through , may I make a suggestion ? Don ' t examine it with a computer engine , but get out a chess set and play it through OTB , imagining that it was being played at a congress . This way , my annotations will make better sense . Begin by skipping through the first 12 moves which are just standard theory .

15 . Nc3 b4 16 . Ne2 a5 17 . Ng3 Nfd7 18 . Bd3 Nc5 19 . Bb5 Ba6 20 . Bxa6 Nxa6 21 . b3 Rc8 By this stage , I realised that Black was merely playing for a draw . Fixing the pawn structure in the centre and also on the queen side leaves White only kingside attacking options with his pawns ; but Black achieves this formation at the cost of a critical strategic weakness : the pawn on a5 . If White can eventually establish a knight on c4 , Black will either lose the a-pawn or waste a piece on its passive defence . This is one of two key themes from which White ' s advantage eventually materialises . 22 . Be3 g6 23 . Rc1 Nd7 24 . Rxc8 Qxc8 25 . Nd2 Nac5 26 . Qg4

1 . e4 e5 2 . Nf3 Nc6 3 . Bb5 a6 4 . Ba4 Nf6 5.0 – 0 d6 6 . c3 Be7 7 . Re1 b5 8 . Bb3 0 – 0 9 . h3 Na5 10 . Bc2 c5 11 . d4 cxd4 12 . cxd4 Bb7 13 . d5 I chose 13 . d5 instead of 13 . Nbd2 because it locks the centre . My dilemma was , how to give myself a chance of a win against a solid , careful , 2200 + Eastern European opponent who was using a strong engine ? My experience of keeping the game open with a fluid centre in the Ruy Lopez is that Black can often chart a pathway to endgame equality . 13 ... Nc4 14 . a4 Nb6

Fixing the g-pawn and therefore inhibiting f5 , the second critical theme of the game . As any GM could see at a glance , the only way for Black to achieve true equality with this kind of pawn formation is to prepare and then play the freeing move f5 , to undermine White ' s strong centre . Now , it is probably already too late to do this ; indeed , the move is never played . 26 ... Nf6 27 . Nf5 A little tactical skirmish which now adds to Black ' s problems . 27 ... Qc7 28 . Nxe7 + Qxe7 29 . Qf3 Nfd7 30 . Bh6 Re8 31 . Nc4 Creating precisely the threat that White had been planning 10 moves earlier !

SCCA Magazine 133 7 Spring 2016