The featured game today has a Sicilian Sveshnikov opening variation.  Hi all.  I had a rather interesting chess
match last night in the North Circular
Chess League. My opponent was John
Hodgson
so we were away at at Wanstead Chess
Club
They are our closest rival in the league
so far in the league we have been
leading it. Unfortunately last night we
were two players short so having to
travel to this away match two players
short so quite a head start for a six
board match. Time control 90 minutes for all moves with a 10 second increment
per move. So John Hodgson a very
experienced player
The game opened with e4. He's currently about 187 ECF and
has been higher in the past
I played the Sicilian defense so c5. Nf3
 and inspired by Magnus Carlsen
I played into the Sicilian Sveshnikov
which was a favorite of mine when I was
much younger I had some good success
with the Sicilian Sveshnikov. And the thing
that put me off this opening basically
the massive knights that White can get on d5
in some of the main older variations. Not
the ones in the recent World
Championship but the older ones which
we're about to see and revisit here for
those interested. So cxd4 Knight
takes Knight f6 this encourages Knight
c3 which blocks the C pawn so I used to
play incorrectly in correspondence style
chess the move e5 and in fact after
Knight b5 Knight f6 White is not obliged
play Knight c3. There's some very
dangerous ideas here for example Bishop
c4 and this this could be trouble or
Bishop g5 and quickly taking on f6
there's other idea so basically Knight
f6 is the main Sveshnikov move so
encouraging Nc3. We have Ndb5 now
so Nc3 e5 Ndb5 d6 Bishop g5 a6 Na3 b5 and there's two main lines. So
this is the old mainline this is not the
World Championship variation which we've
seen a lot. Because White's basically 
didn't play Knight d5 here so that's the
one being featured at the moment with
very high profile from Magnus Carlsen
often. And even after the world championship they play Knight d5 so anyway so
Bishop g5 this is the old tried and
tested method so a6 Na3
b5. Nd5. There's an alternative in the
immediate bishop takes f6 and then knight
here and I had some fun with games you
have to be careful do you play f5.
And sometimes you play Bishop g7. You have to check all the theory but basically I
think f5 might be playable immediately
and this kind of thing seems very
familiar where d5 is is pressurized and
maybe sometimes you can even consider f4
or Bishop g7 so anyway in this game we
have the more positional kind of a more
controlled variation Nd5.I think this
is a favorite of Anatoly Karpov so
Bishop e7 white gives up the f6 Bishop
so by giving up the dark square Bishop
it seems actually the light square play
is pronounced so that is a classic
example where it's the other color of
the bishop given up which can we
celebrated from white. We see c3
a very standard maneuver to hop the
knight to the center but also
preventative things like B4 for keeping
your grip on d4 against the b4 and
supporting a4 to undermine black's pawn
chain over here so I castled. Knight c2.  Interesting here instead of knight c2
if h4 is played to stop any Bishop g5
possibility maybe g6 isn't that bad for
example this
isn't so bad if Black is not getting
immediately hacked to death. It seems
okay. On h4 with bishop takes just
runs into Queen h5 with a total disaster.
The bishops gonna be trapped  to stop h7
You wouldn't do that
b4 as an alternative cxb4 Nd4 might be
with an advantage
actually for white as well. So this even
Even if white took and
allowed Nd4 it's still an advantage
for white. So it's actually 
a really tricky position here so it
seems as though h4 might even be
plausible. There's Nc2 here though
we see rook b8 and this is I'm taking
like I believe Grandmaster Daniel King might have
mentioned it at some point
a4 is kind of discouraged because of the
b2 pawn. It turns out things are not
that simple actually. Does it really
discourage a4 or not this move? So it has
I believe had some recommendations in
the past. If it's not played here if
Bishop g5 is played here h4 now and
there's a threat of destroying the
bishop with g5 so you end up playing
this and then Queen f3 and the only
thing is about this ok White's winning
pawn but black gets that e-file pressure
and the e5 square. So this kind of
position might not be all bad from a
practical perspective for black it seems
as though technically White is doing
fine but black maybe wouldn't be to this
displeased. So a bit of play in this
particular position
so after h4  - the other
interesting little finesse Bishop f4
White could just play if white plays g4 then
Bishop e6 and it's a little bit
different. Very different for
example like this very different
with black getting the driving seat but in
fact just g3 kind of seems to transpose
we force this position with Bf4. And then okay it's it's like it
looks as a white is doing really well here technically potentially because
of castling queenside with pressure on d6
okay so anyway rook b8 we have the move
h4
Bishop e6 Nce3. We have b4 now. 
There is a
fascinating line I did actually want to
show you with a4 here instead of
this. a4 as well. Have I managed to lose
the analysis for a4? Okay I will be back in
a moment.  Okay I've recovered some of
the analysis yes. On a4 as an alternative
here to h4 which was played so which
deprived Bishop g5. Let's say a4 here.
Is there an issue with b2?  The thing is
bxa4 Rxa4 a6 is going be loose
so say taking here Bishop takes. That is a
problem and its own right. Bishop g4 and
the other problem here is Queen a1
actually it looks like a trap for black
what is black doing here?
The rooks getting trapped if rook
take c2. If the rook goes back White is
just getting huge positional trump cards
but if we take here it's just worse the
Rook is trapped.  This is
not sufficient for black. White has got a
big advantage there so yes it seems as
though a4 was actually possible which
makes me question why am I playing this
rook b8 because if root b8 is that
ineffectual in theory then maybe Bishop
g5 just to have the option of Bishop h6
oh so we have Bishop g5 here as an
option
which should be taken seriously and if a4
now. Taking taking a five this is the
old torture experience of the Sveshnikov
but it might be the best that
black could do. This may be the way to
play it with you know some counterplay
so so I'm playing this rook b8 which
really doesn't work it seems on concrete
analysis. And so h4 and I'm thinking I'm
going be strangled here with this d5
stuff. This is going to be reminding me of
why I gave up the Sicilian Sveshnikov this game. Especially because I can't even move my
f pawn now because I haven't played
Bishop g5 because I tried to slip in a
bit of prophylaxis with Rb8 which doesn't even really work if
truth be told. So that's the story so far
so Bishop e6 Nce4. So I'm getting a
bit strangled and I come up with a
novelty move because my theory is kind
of ending here. I'm thinking how do I
cause a bit of trouble on chessboard
some mayhem or some counter play and I
played b4. Apparently even Vassily Ivanchuk
has had this position with black. b4 is a
new move and probably a terrible move
Bishop e7 might be more to the point and
then Queen here with actually the
subtle point that the bishop which is
without counterpart which should be
perhaps treasured can go back to d8 and
then play for f5 and this might be the
way to play. For example this is what
Ivanchuk played against
Javenko
a 2708 player Grandmaster with white and
Vassily Ivanchuk playing black in the 
tournament of 2007. So he put the bishop on
d8 then he challenged d5 and then later
it didn't seem that bad. With his dark
square Bishop preserved and he's
getting a bit of counterplay damaging
White's pawn structure it was sufficient to
get a draw eventually there was
sufficient compensation to get a draw so
perhaps this is a wise course of action
Ivanchuk drew this. Okay so this is
in this critical position Bishop e7
interesting with idea to avoid the
double pawns so you want to play Be7 then Queen d7
This avoids doubled pawns on f6 and f7.  And then you take the bishop to d8.
And then you can begin to play again but
no b4 just seems to lose the a6 pawn
which if you put it through Stockfish
actually undecided on taking or
Bishop c4 a little bit.  It doesn't seem entirely emphatic.  But in the game Bd3
is played to a little bit of surprise.
Because on Bishop takes a6 I haven't
really got that much.  This position for
example at least there's the dark square
Bishop without counterpart so there's a
bit of imbalance. How do we qualify this
type of imbalance when it really it
can't actually be balanced on specific
factors because there's no counterpart
Bishop. But I don't just say
imbalanced I mean it's difficult to
actually balance as well. I don't know if
that's a new word imbalanced and
difficult to balance because yeah
there's there's actually very distinct
imbalances so this thing's okay you get
get the picture. There's stuff to
play for here even if the engine at the
classical AB engine thinks it's
absolutely terrible for black there is
probably something here
with the dark squared bishop so
Bd3 was played we have bxc3 bxc3
Ne7 challenging and offering f6
yeah I give it up here I'm just I just
don't want to be seeing that knight
anymore. So it does go off the board and
I'm thinking actually with this double
points there's the perk of the G file so
white castles and I was quite pleased. I
thought this is okay King h8 now with
the prospects of Knight g6 and there's
targeting this pawn on h4. If I played
Knight g6 immediately I did have a look
at this. I thought my knight might be
awkwardly
trapped here but there's g5 I don't
really take this that seriously this
variation. But there's actually g5 so
maybe this is fine
doing this.  Putting on knight on h3. We just
go back to g5 then we do you see
that that clearly actually. I just
thought this was a bit too committal but
maybe it's a way
to play. White doesn't have to play h5
though.  White could play g3 and we still
get interesting lines with Kh8 for Nf4
and rook g8.  You know for Knight f4 and
f5 there's the stuff going on the G file
basically but in this in this line with
say King h8 here offering gxf4 Rg8
check and Knight g2 as a resource it
doesn't end there
for example this and it doesn't and
there it seems as though this is a very
very sharp variation just just showing
that actually even this scenario it
should be about even. So g3 and this is
all very interesting stuff with Knight
g6 so I played King h8 though. g3 here
was played Rg8 Kh2 and it
seems white in theory Stockfish really
likes Queen f6. So if I have to protect
with Knight g6 then here
White's actually doing very well it
seems but that wasn't played so Kh2
and we have Rb2 and I was getting
excited by the prospect of Queen b6 and
Queen takes here with this pin on f2 so
we have Queen c1. On Queen h5 that's fine
as well it seems Queen b6. Just quickly
actually going back here Qf6 hitting f6.
And White has got a big advantage. So yeah this seems to be a pretty precarious
position. Qc1 was played and I
just put the rook back. I didn't want to
simplify or anything with Rxa2.  So taking now. I thought okay White is
using a quite bit of time here and so
I've got a bit of counterplay. This is all
really one can expect with the black
pieces. I thought there's a bit of
counter play because there's ideas of
Knight g6 taking and f5 sometimes hitting
h4 for threatening to checkmate with rook
and Queen. So Knight g6 but we have
Knight g2 now just supporting that h4.
On h5
here it can become interesting
with Knights f4 almost. There are
some interesting variations but I played
sorry in this position Knight f8 Bishop
e2 White has  got a big advantage so yeah
h5 here just show something on this f5
and here that there's ideas like rook
takes g2 and Queen h4 for example. And
yeah there's some interesting
analysis possibilities in this position
anyway. Anyway Knight g2 was played
we have f5 exf5.  And this gives me at
least some central pawn mobility there's
a loose piece to target as well from
over here via d5 which I use in this
position d5 hitting the bishop so the
bishop goes back
we have Rbd8. I'm looking
forward to sometimes playing d4 but it
can be a bit of a weakling that pawn if
it is pushed. So I prefer actually
to see if I can maintain the tension a bit
more. Bishop c2. On d4 immediately it does
kind of show the cards basically. They are
exposed. The pawns are fixed Queen g5 and
actually this position White is just
engulfing that pawn it seems with a big
advantage technically. So Bishop c2
bishop drops back. I'm trying to provoke
weaknesses that is obliged. And now after bf5 h5 so White's pawns are
creeping forward but are there dark
square weaknesses? But the more
significant thing here. Ok e5 is now
targeted with that unveiling the
pressure on e5. The more
significantly thing here is I can
arrange Queen b7 and f5 to try and undermine
this structure on light squares which I
do. Queen g7 if d4 cxd4 this
position there's unfortunately Queen f4
it's real pain that Knights protecting the
Queen this would be a total pain. Thorn
pawn even worse and undermining the dark squares with this even worse.
Things get nasty or this kind of scenario
even. Not even having to take on c6 it's
just a big advantage for white.  Black's
not going anywhere
Queens are off there's no counterplay
ready. So Queen g7 keeps things alive
for f5 and in fact this seems a bit odd
to me this excursion with the Queen and
now I get in f5 when I'm back in a good
shape I believe here in this position.
Despite white constructing that
impressive structure it's the
downside created - it can be attacked
it's the hyper-moderns had a point
let the opponent construct things and
you can sort of try and destroy them
later with regard to central occupation
but here it's these pawns - they can
be undermined. So King g1 we have e4.
In fact I could have just played fxg4.
For some reason I was worried about
something here
unnecessarily this seems stable enough
in terms of the center.  Maybe I was concerned about
something but I can't really put it into
words.  I just thought maybe
there's a bit of tension release aspect
here but it seems from the engine point
of view that this is absolutely great
for black for example like this and
there's possibilities of even winning
the exchange and stuff. So that
would have been absolutely great and
very clear-cut but I didn't play it.
I played actually e4 and we have gxf5
Bxf5 f4. And I was
delighted at the prospect of Bh3. 
f4 and now Bishop e3 doesn't seem
because White is controlling e3
the Queen is actually doing something if I
put pressure with this.  There is this
without e3 so I thought I would interrupt
e3 first by playing d4 and we get into
a really sharp tactical sequence here
with white playing h6 now so this
dislodging my queen from the diagoal
sometimes is useful if d5 and the Queen
gets the d4 if especially that thorn pawn
remains so I actually took it off. On
Queen f6 it's actually a disaster for d5
here with the pin against the Queen so
for example like this bang
so that is bad news. So I take here and
now there is d5. The problem I overlooked here
is to my horror actually an initial
horror that if I play Bishop takes g2
here white doesn't use d4 but uses
g2 and gets a nasty pin on g7 and then
plays rook takes g2 and my fun is over
well and truly over
I've been pinned and it's a total
disaster
thankfully I find the move Queen g7 so
that controls the diagonal. Supports Knight
d4 on Queen b2 as well
white did play Queen B2 - Nd4
rook takes e4 and I have to find a move
here and I did there's actually two very
good news. I found one of them which is
not the greatest but i found one which
keeps black in the driving seat. What
would you play here if I give you five
seconds starting from now. Okay the
strongest move is actually Rc1
because if takes here then Bishop takes
and that's that's just crushing. Black's
just crushing. It's gonna be like
checkmate that's the strongest and if
Queen takes then there is rook takes d1
and then Bishop x g2. Its pretty
simple stuff basically there's this
discovered check check and then taking
the Queen Bishop up. And it's the right
color Bishop for the last pawn. It's on
the light square so that should be okay
black that should be much better there
so Rc3 is the one I chose with
the idea that Queen takes there's Ne2
check winning the Queen and I thought
it was nice to get the rook maybe to g3
sometime so I was pleased so far
with this Rc3 concept
I thought it was quite good so we have
King f1 and my opponent is down to
about two minutes and I'm the one that
starts panicking now. I play rook d3
now that this rook on c3 is now hanging as
there is no check. So that's the point of that
it's going into a self pin though. I play
Rd3 supporting the knight and hitting
the bishop and now Ke1 which is
a move in a bad position and I could
have just taken on g2 here
so my opponent has got two minutes I've got about 12 to 14 minutes in
this position so Bishop h5 for example
blacks in good shape with Bishop f5 and
here h6 apparently is a key move maybe
it's a high class waiting move or something so
for example here then going back here
sorry going over here with rook
h3 is good and white is in
trouble for example like this is gonna
be good for black. You know black is
winning material.  They're gonna be
winning at least the exchange up but
I disastrously after king e1.
I blunder. I have a hallucination in my
opponent's time trouble I play Knight f3
check and yeah this is a good reason not to show you the game. This terrible blunder I'm thinking hang
on a sec he doesn't have to play rook
takes here and then rook takes I'm
winning Queen. I got overexcited by
that possibility of winning the Queen
you know deflecting the rook away from
defending the Queen. But of course he
just plays Bishop takes f3 and I have to
step back and think well what have I done.
I've just let down the team we've just
that yeah it was critical to try and at
least draw this game. I have just blown
it for the whole team as well and also
have I potentially damaged our prospects
of winning the league - the North
Circular A division so I had multiple
times the amount of time you know six
times the amount of time and I'm the one
blundering a piece here but it turns out
I can get at least the piece back but
I'm pawns down here. I'm two pawns down
and the only thing is my opponents down
to two minutes but it is a 10 second increment
per move. I'm not sure what happened to
the
game score here. You can see my level of
nervousness. I was calm to start off with in
this game from the handwriting you can
tell my level of calmness.
I can't be the only human being to have
this but when I have the disaster it
turns to spider-writing.
It was fairly legible to start off with
so my level of calmness is actually a
measure of how well I can do handwriting
and it just gets terrible later yeah in
fact I probably be in trouble with this
level of handwriting if it was an
official FIDE one day event. So I actually
can't reconstruct what exactly happened here. This is a
gist of what happened here so in this
position I'm just gutted I take time
sorry so Ree2 may have been played
this may have been played this and now
this may have been played. I'm not
certain but this pawn - it looks promising
This might be the game
continuation but I already if this is
the case it seems here technically black
also misses the possibility of just
playing Rc1 check here because if Kf2 then g2 drops.
If here then there's a pin and black's
better now. Or taking even worse than
that. I think I might have been put
off with something there with the knight
just being exchange down. But if this is
the case in fact I don't play Bishop g4
this is the original thing I did spot
but I can just take on g2 here if this
is really the case so yeah I've kind of
cracked up giving the piece and I'll
cracked up even taking the immediate
opportunity if this really is the case
so anyway I don't know exactly what
happened here. I think I was pretty
distraught basically. I was pretty
distraught about this blunder
just just to recap instead of Nf3
just Bishop takes g2 is winning.  For
example here rook takes d2 in this
position it looks as though you know
maybe there's a problem. But not really
check and that's absolutely winning for
black. I'll be taking. Oh what does White do here? On King f1
there's check here and taking here. That
the rook is is pinned for example so
what does white actually do here? Bishop
e2 I take the Queen King d2 I take the
Queen so just to recap here you know
this is actually just winning the Queen
basically. Kg1 - I can take on b2
and here take on b2 so this is just
totally a disaster.  So just taking on g2
is a total disaster for white yeah so
that is really what happened. If rook
takes rook takes here. Well this is what
we're saying so Knight f3 anyway - disaster
move so somehow I managed to get
this idea of the cheapo rook c1 check
and didn't play it immediately which
apparently I could have. I played this
and after d6 it looks as though this is
his getting really dangerous. 
I play this now. I play here and thankfully like I'm
thinking I'm absolutely gutted at the
board by this point but after Ne1 I
realize hold on this is actually quite
good I can even do better here than
winning the exchange. Guess what I played
in this position black to play if I give
you five seconds so does Black just want to take the exchange immediately or is
there time to do anything else?
okay I did actually manage to calculate
something which is Re3
allowing d7 because now rook takes e2
and White has to resign. If queening it is
check but there's a counter check
discovered check counter check
winning the Queen so a pretty flawed game. I blundered in my opponent's time
pressure.  This is actually a fairly
common thing to happen I think it occurs
due to kind of maybe over excitement
over optimism and my calculation just
went to pieces at that critical moment
of being able to win a piece quite
cleanly with Bishop take g2 it turns out.
It requires some interesting calculations
with the checks and how it can even win
the Queen by on b2 by force but yeah I
cracked in my opponents time pressure
then then the human story continues. So
we actually managed to win the match. Alex managed to
win and Roy managed to win and the other
game we managed to somehow get a draw so
being two points down on a
six board match we still managed to win
three and a half two and a half this
match and kind of secured the North
Circular League A division barring any other
major disaster I think we just need to
draw a match and secure the victory of
the whole league yeah North Circular
league was kind of secured last night
two boards down.  But this is the drama
here bit of drama I did blow it I did
actually blow this game totally and on
the way back this is amusing the
motorway was closed and we ended up
following for some reason. Alex was
following these re routing signs and we
end up in some field and there's two
lorries totally stuck blocking this
field so we we followed by all these
signs for diverted traffic and end up in a field at midnight and I'm starting
to be seriously worried if I ever get
home to tell the story of this game.
I started to be seriously worried. It started turning into a horror movie.
Anyway we managed to like reverse
out of this field. I wanted to watch
"OA" on Netflix  - two episodes away from
seeing the end of that about parallel universes.
I recommend it "OA". Anyway we managed to get back yeah okay
before one AM at least.  I think after
midnight I managed to get back so that
was the story of this game which I was
seriously thinking I shouldn't tell
because this really horrific blunder but
maybe the whole thing is it's just what
makes the experience of playing over the
board chess. But yeah chess is better for
the computers.  The thing is this is what I
was discussing in the car as well as all
the James Bond films when we got stuck
in the field. First of all James Bond is
let off a lot of the time - allowed to be resourceful
so aside from that we were also
discussing how the stakes of an over the
board game if ever if you do play over
the board chess seriously it's like they
get higher and higher. Because the amount
of time you've just spent hours hours to
just blunder I I feel it's too much to
bear
I'd rather just do chess videos then
play serious over the board  chess. And
this is not even one day chess I just
think the stakes are too hard to bear
because also as you get older you know
the amount of time and energy you are like
knackered the next day. It is like the
stakes are even higher
so maybe Chess is arduous. I hate to be cynical but maybe Chess is better often as a
spectator
the amount of investment of time and
effort and energy just to blowing it at
the end.  As I nearly very much did it in
this game basically it's really too
much but anyway I'm telling you this
tale. Take it or leave it. I thought
it was maybe that there's something
in it which is interesting. Okay
comments, questions likes shares appreciated
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