Sunday, April 1, 2018

GM Var Akobian Vanquishes E4stat

Every US Chess Championship, I remind my readers that Var and I played in a 2010 blitz tournament. This time, the battleground was a rapid tournament (G15+2) at the St. Louis Chess Club. He improved his score against me to 3-0. But this time, I put up a fight.

[Event "Saturday Night Special G15+2"] [Site "St. Louis"] [Date "2018.03.31"] [Round "3"] [White "Akobian, Varuzhan"] [Black "Wilson, Matthew"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "A61"] [WhiteElo "2725"] [BlackElo "2083"] [Annotator "Wilson,Matthew"] [PlyCount "65"] 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 c5 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nc3 g6 7. Bf4 a6 8. a4 Qe7 9. e3 Bg7 10. Be2 O-O 11. O-O Nbd7 12. Nd2 Rb8 13. Nc4 Ne8 14. e4 {The pawn is immune} Ne5 15. Nb6 ({ I had taken a long time on the previous move because I was concerned about} 15. Nxe5 Bxe5 16. Bxe5 Qxe5 17. f4 {White's center is on the move and Black has lost much of his dynamic potential after trading off his dark-squared bishop. But then I saw 16...dxe5 and realized that Black is okay. The knight will be transferred to d6, where it will block White's passer and support ...b5.}) 15... Nf6 16. Qd2 Nfd7 17. Nxc8 Rfxc8 18. Rae1 c4 19. Bg5 f6 20. Be3 Nc5 21. Bxc5 Rxc5 22. f4 Nd7 {The right square for the knight, so that I can meet...} 23. Bg4 {with...} Nf8 24. Re2 { Stockfish thinks this move blows White's advantage} b5 25. axb5 axb5 26. Re3 Re8 27. Kh1 {I don't remember if he played Re3 before Kh1 or after Kh1, but this position definitely occurred.} h5 {I was trying to make 27...f5 work, but I wasn't happy with 28.Bf3. So I forced the bishop to commit itself. Stocky isn't fond of this move. In my defense, I was very low on time.} 28. Bh3 Bh6 29. Ree1 b4 $6 {I was down to around 10 seconds and had to make a move. But this gets Black in trouble.} 30. Na4 Rb5 31. Qd4 $1 { And it's not easy to hold onto all my pawns. I lunged forward:} f5 $2 (31... c3 32. bxc3 Bg7 $1 {is actually playable (Stockfish), but you don't see these resources when you're down to 10 seconds!}) 32. Qxc4 Rbb8 33. e5 { and Black soon collapsed} 1-0
Good luck in the US Championship, Var!

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