I haven't had much to say about the opening - that's because I know the Latvian Gambit about as well as I know folk singer Joan Armatrading. (I'm always perfectly willing to discuss my ignorance on any topic) But I can look around the board and discuss the relevant features of the position.
Black is castled and all of his pieces are developed to good squares, especially the g4-bishop. It is this bishop which needs to be chased away ASAP - the white king can't escape the center with that bishop barreling down the d1-h5 diagonal, obviously. But white is a pawn up for all of his trouble, so wouldn't it be great to just play 12 Be2 Bxe2 and get rid of that scary bishop? Yes it would - except white is going to be a pawn down in the middlegame instead of a pawn up ([A] 13 Qxe2 Nxd4 14 Qd3 Qxg2! [B] 13 Nxe2 Qxg2). And that's fine if that's the best we can do - but I can't see why white can't simply play 12 h3 here (12...Qh5 13 Be2 Bxe2 14 Nxe2) and white will be able to castle and go into that middlegame with his extra pawn.
White instead preferred to play for the attack.
In my opinion, more to the point is 13...Bh4+ 14 g3 Rae8 15 Ne5 Nxe5 and white can rescue the queen but he's in a pit no matter what he does.
I like the look of 15...Nxc2+ but it loses thanks to the now hanging g4-bishop after 16 Bxc2 Qxc2 17 Qxg4.
The counterattacking try 18 Rf1 comes up short: 18..Bh4 19 Rxf5 Bxg3+ 20. hxg3 Rxf5.
This move, I think, showed DeVries' alertness and good judgment in this game more than any other move. I could easily see myself, and many other players in my class, slapping down the tempting 18...Be5. After all, look at the possibilities! The reflexive defense 19 Nxf5 gets mated: 19...Bxg3++ 20 Kf1 Rxf5+ 21 Kg1 Bf2+ 22 Kf1 Bd4+. Well, let's guard that dangerous f2 square, then: 19 Qh4 Bxh2! (mate on f1 or f2 is the punishment for grabbing the h2-bishop) 20 Bc1 (vacating d2 for the white king) 20...Rxe3+ (20...g5 also appears to win - for fun, play around with it) 21 Bxe3 Qe4 (The h2 bishop is still untouchable because of ...Qxe4+ and ...Qe2#; therefore, white can defend the beleaguered bishop with) 22 Qg5 Bg3+ 23 Kd2 Qxg2+ 24 Kd3 Qe2+ 25 Ke4 (25 Kd4 Be5+ 26 Ke4 Bf3#) 25...Bf3+ 26 Kd4 Be5+ and white must swap queen for bishop.
Pretty stuff, but not exhaustive - white could have willingly given up queen for bishop before he was forced to and made black's task a little messier. No, there is a reason black rejected 18...Be5 and that's the absurdly simple 19 Qxg4. So why bother with all those lines? For one, I think they're kind of fun; but two, and what is far more important, they illustrate how important it is to remain alert to every possibility. John DeVries undoubtedly saw that 18...Be5 was a strong-looking move, but many won games are blown at the exact moment the player in question chose not to sit on his hands? Yes, 18...Be5 is refuted simply, but not many of us would have exercised the patience and judgment to resist playing it. Stronger players could have resisted, but when we all learn when and when not to pull the trigger, we will get a little bit closer to their level. John DeVries certainly did so in this game.
I'm nitpicking here, but 19...Qd3 removes all doubt - either 20 hxg4 or 20 Qxg4 are answered by 20...Bxe3 and there's just no way to deal with all the threats without losing scads of material.
John thought that perhaps 20 hxg4 might have saved the position, but black's position is too strong for that: 20...Bf2+! 21 Kd1 Qxd5. The black queen scampers away while the white queen remains in peril.
22 Bd4 threatens mate in one - remarkable in that white has been going backwards for almost the entire game - but the defense is simple: 22...Re2+ 23 Kd3 Qf5+ 24 Kc4 b5+ 25 Kb3 Qc2+ 26 Kb5 c5+.
And there it is. We'll see one week from today just how good my analysis was. That aside, I enjoyed playing through this game. It was a lot of fun.
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This move isn't exactly a mainline Sicilian but it certainly has its attractive qualities. The d4-square is under pressure (compare this to black's play in Aparicio-Makhlaychuk, 1998 for similarities) and the attacking defense 5 Be3? just drops the b2-pawn. The primary idea behind the Open Sicilian, from black's perspective, is that if he can reach an endgame his extra pawn in the center will be very advantageous for him. For white in the Open Sicilian, middlegame attack is the name of the game.
I wasn't very well-versed in the Sicilian back in those days. The retreat 5 Nb3, a standard book move in many lines, simply didn't occur to me. But the text-move allows black to get one step closer to that endgame with that knight trade AND moves the b-pawn to the far more useful c-file, where it will support the d-pawn once it comes to the d5-square. So yeah, I'm giving black EXACTLY what he wants in this opening - all in the first five moves!
As I mentioned in the Makhlaychuk game, I had an unhealthy fixation with the fianchetto during the years 1997-2001; when I was out of ideas, I simply played b2-b3 and Bc1-b2 (or g2-g3 and Bf1-g2, depending). In the abstract, it's a fine idea - place the bishop on the long diagonal, it runs through the center and controls a lot of squares - but a chess game seldom permits such leisurely maneuvers.
Before I go on with the game, I need to make clear the point I am trying to make: the fianchetto is very often an excellent idea. This maneuver is the central idea behind several excellent opening systems, (the King's Indian Defense, the Queen's Indian Defense, the Benoni Defense, the Sicilian Dragon, various English Opening variations, etc.) so I'm not telling you to avoid using the fianchetto; I was using it as a crutch back in those days, making it a substitute for thinking about which moves were relevant to the position. This is a lazy and dangerous approach to chess, especially in complex, tactical openings like the Open Sicilian.
Consider the text-move, 7 b3? To complete the fianchetto, white will need to play 8 Bb2 - what does that accomplish? The white king is stuck in the center and the other bishop is doing nothing on f1; why not 7 Bc4 and 8 0-0 instead? Sure, black can insert something contentious like 7...Ba6 to prevent castling, but then 8 Bxa6 Qxa6 9 Qd4! is strong: 9...Nf6 10 Bg5 Bg7 11 e5. White is now ready to castle and black's knight is getting kicked around like a tin can.
I have purposefully avoided comment for the past several moves because the topic here is defending bad positions. White has reasonably handled a bad opening up until now - but this move is a screaming, howling, why-on-earth-do-I-still-bother-with-chess quality blunder. 16 d4 c5 17 d5 was the most plausible continuation; white is still worse off but at least in this line he enters a middlegame with level material.
A queen trade would be disastrous for white, and for that reason white must play an awkward move to keep the queens on.
White was threatening a forced draw with Qg4-h5-g6+, Qg6-h6-g6, with perpetual check. Black has maneuvered very nicely: besides preventing that draw, all of his pawns are on dark squares - which of course allows his extra piece, the bishop, to travel unimpeded.
This is a subject close to my heart - the unjustified one-move threat. Black has done a superb job improving his most of his pieces after winning the bishop. Here, black could play 29...Bf7 to connect the rooks and begin invading the queenside in earnest; even 29...a5 looks pretty good. Why redeploy an already well-placed piece (to attack a piece which will most certainly not agree to be traded) when black's material superiority can assert itself on the other side of the board? When you've got your opponent in retreat covering up one weakness, it's always a good policy to explore the possibility of creating another one. Eventually, defensive pieces charged with covering multiple problem areas will break under enough well-placed pressure and make winning a game simple.
What's this? Isn't white supposed to avoid trades when down in material? Yes. But it also occurred to me that the result of this trade (which black is quite happy to accept for all reasons obvious) makes a lot of central light squares uninhabitable for the black bishop. So by agreeing to the trade, I reduce the effectiveness of black's extra piece.
33...Qc3 creates a tactical idea in conjunction with ...Be8-f7 and ...Bf7xc4.
35...Rb2 is much stronger and looks decisive, since 36 Qa5 fails to 36...Qg3. Alternatively, 36 Qe3 Rxa2 eventually allows ...Qb2 and white is plastered to his back rank.
38...Rb1 is superior. The hanging bishop can't be touched since white loses the exchange.
Black has utterly wasted his extra piece. Far from utilizing the bishop, black assists white by blocking the defense of a vital pawn with that extra material.
What have we witnessed so far? To be sure, black has played rather poorly since preventing the perpetual check - but why? Aided by the urgency of a ticking clock, black has committed errors related to the possiblity that white was threatening, or could threaten, something. In short, black is tiptoeing around ghosts. 29...Qe5?! and 35 Qb2? were undoubtedly motivated by the desire to get the queens off the board. With 38...Qa6? black was so fearful of losing his extra material that he failed to recognize that the bishop was in no real danger. And with the text-move, black was so concerned with the white queen's location that he didn't stop to consider this reality: Her Majesty really can't do anything more than look scary on the e6-square. Black wanted to drive it out at all costs.
The point is, when you're on the short end of the stick, threaten something. Anything. Don't just sit there. Maybe your defense will unnerve the opponent; I'm sure that this is what happened in this game.
White has recovered two pawns for the bishop, which is, materially, nearly equal .
Of course, it's curtains for the critical d3-pawn, right?
The Lady in White deserves a raise for her all of her hard work in this game. With this move white keeps the d3-pawn on the board for now.
Just grab the d3-pawn! Jeez!
My original note to this move, written after I first analyzed this game, read "Black has played...as though he has the material deficit." That's kind of a stupid comment, I thought as I glanced over the old annotations. However, as I reviewed the game in preparation for writing this post I realized that this comment invites two interpretations. On the one hand, the proper approach for the player short on material is to play more alertly and boldly, since passive play will avail him nothing; in that sense, the note is nonsensical. But on the other hand, the idea that a player with a material deficit will play not to harrass the opponent but solely to preserve what he has, regardless of what's going on in the game, reacting rather than acting, it is that sense in which my original note does have some merit. Black has had the majority of the game dictated to him despite winning significant material in the opening. So keep this in mind - do not let a game get out of your control in this way. It is extremely important to keep a cool head when evaluating threats. Otherwise, reflexive reactions to those threats, over and over again, will transform you into a non-participant at the board. What opponent could be easier to deal with than the one playing your game rather than his own?
This is pure bluff, as it turns out. 53...Rxf6! 54 Qxg4+ is the best white can get from this, since the white rook is en prise on c1.
Believe it or not, the only alternative (62...Ka5) is checkmate! (63 Qe1++)
Rook and bishop can often compensate for a queen, and the win isn't forced quite yet. But considering the emotional state black must have been in, can you blame the guy for tipping his king?
Often a position appears to be so strong that the game should just win itself. But as GM Jan Hein Donner put it, "Chess games are not won with good positions but with good moves." I did nearly everything I could to make the win difficult for my opponent, and he responded with bad moves. Had I hunkered down in a corner, waiting for the end, my opponent would have picked me apart in routine fashion. Never give up. Never, never, never. (Churchill)
***Edit by Ricardo*** Besides correcting several errors on the move list, I hadn't yet posted a playback link. You may now click the new link below if it pleases you.
