Happy
Bloody Birthday -- GM John Emms Happy
Bloody Birthday -- GM John Emms
Neutralising
the Norm-hunters -- GM James Howell
I’ve
finally decided that playing a competitive game of chess on your birthday is not
what it’s cracked up to be. In fact, I’ll be taking measures to ensure this
doesn’t happen to me again. It’s all the more painful if it happens to be a
critical encounter in an international open in Bad Worishofen, Germany, and
you’re up against some complete unknown from Kazakhstan who has zero games on
your database. It seems somehow that normal rules just don’t apply any more.
At first you feel invincible. You move quickly and confidently, and wait for
your opponent to collapse under the pressure. Except that he doesn’t. Slowly
but surely little things start to play on your mind. Every time your opponent
plays a half decent move you feel cheated and want to let out an audible groan.
Before you start to panic you console yourself with the knowledge that the lousy
position you have in front of you really doesn’t matter at all. You fantasise
about how he will blunder in the time-scramble, leaving you to remark humorously
to your friends that ‘he must have known it was my birthday!’ When your
position deteriorates so much that even three blunders in succession would
merely give you drawing chances, you suddenly feel the urge to inform your foe
of the important date and his moral duty to give you a draw. Realising that this
idea is ridiculous and, more to the point, wouldn’t work, you finally resign
yourself to another fruitless and pointless birthday.
J.
Emms – B. Katalymov
Bad
Worishofen 1996 (7)
Sicilian
1
e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 Nc6 6 Bc4 Bd7
Trying
to sneak into the Dragon Variation via an unusual move order, thus avoiding some
critical lines. I speculated for a while about trying something unusual before
deciding that I should play safe after all.
7
0-0 g6 8 h3
8
Bg5 Bg7 9 Nd5!? Nxd5 10 Nxc6 bxc6 11 exd5 h6! 12 Bh4 and Black can
safely nick the b-pawn.
8...Bg7
9 Re1 0-0 10 Bg5 Rc8 11 Bb3 h6 12 Be3 Na5
13
Nd5??
A
totally unacceptable move, played of course without too much thought. Still, I
get away with these things you know. He just won’t take that e-pawn. I was
once lucky enough to witness the post-mortem analysis of a game between Angus
Dunnington and Glenn Flear in Le Touquet. On reaching a position which was
slightly but clearly inferior for him, Glenn insisted that he was playing for
the win. This statement mystified me until he backed it up with, ‘I am the
Grandmaster after all’. The same rule applies here. My opponent should ponder
the consequences of taking the pawn for a couple of minutes, decide it’s way
too complicated and defer to my grandmasterly judgement. I just look calm and
furiously pretend to analyse 13...Nxd5 as if
it’s the only legal move. Why is he thinking so long? Oh please don’t think,
just move!
13...Nxe4
‘Yeah
great, well spotted sir – you can grab that pawn after all. Let’s go back a
move, shall we? I’ll play 13 Qd3 and
we’ll start again.’
14
Qf3 Nxb3 15 axb3 f5! 16 Rxa7
The
secret is in the timing of this move. Played too quickly it looks like blind
panic, whereas too slowly and it’s obvious White has nothing better to do. Now
I’m sure my opponent won’t realise that I’ve simply offloaded a priceless
centre pawn for a worthless wing pawn. It’s time to give him the
‘I’ve-got-a-threatening-position-and-it’s-my-birthday’ glare.
16...e6
17 Nf4 Qe8!
Now
this is just plain silly. What do you think you’re up to? Feel free to play
some bad moves, won’t you?
18
Rxb7 e5
This
move comes all the way from the old Soviet School of Chess and says ‘You gave
away your e-pawn and will be punished accordingly’. Or maybe it simply says
‘Strrructure’.
19
Rxd7
Unfortunately
for me I’m now entering a ‘pointless swindle situation’. In a normal
swindle your opponent’s most obvious move may in fact be a blunder. Here
it’s the complete reverse. His most obvious moves are in fact the best and
only his most ridiculous options don’t work.
19...Qxd7
20 Nxg6 exd4 21 Nxf8 Rxf8 22 Bf4 d5 23 Qd3
Er...
I claim compensation for having a lost position.
23...Qc6
24 f3 Nc5 25 Qd2
25...d3!
26 b4 Ne6 27 cxd3 Nxf4 28 Qxf4 Qf6 29 Kh2 Rc8 30 Re2 Bf8 31 Qg3+ Kh7 32 f4 Bd6
33 Qe3 Rc7
The
old Soviet School is working overtime once more. Just try and look nonchalant.
In a couple of moves I’ll claim a draw as it’s the ‘wrong coloured
bishop’.
34
g3 Bxb4 35 Qf3 Qd4 36 Qh5 Qxd3 37 g4 Qxe2+
Not
phased at all by my measured counter-attack, my opponent gets all materialistic
on me and forces resignation. Such an enjoyable game, sir!
0-1
Have you ever lost to someone who then compounds the horror of your defeat by playing like a joker, losing the rest of their games in a miserable fashion? You know the feeling. I spent too much of the following day watching Khalifman–Katalymov. After the moves 1 d4 c5 2 d5 e6 3 Nc3 exd5 4 Nxd5 Ne7 5 Bg5 h6 6 Bf6! I thought, ‘Here we go, the same old story’. To his credit, Mr Katalymov went on to prove me wrong by frustrating Khalifman and drawing with ease. The fact that Katalymov went down in a ball of flames in his final game is irrelevent since he’d already proved his point, hadn’t he?
Becoming
a GM does have its pluses but the major disadvantage I’ve found
is the sudden disappearance of 95% of my motivation. The only thing that
really gets me going nowadays is the prospect of stopping some unfortunate
who’s going for a norm. This is not a trait on which I have a monopoly: I can
even remember mild-mannered John Nunn making a similar comment. Make the
norm-hunter a Russian and I start foaming at the mouth, so the reader can
imagine that during the following game I was feeling particularly rabid: my
opponent needed a draw for his second GM norm.
James
Howell–Alexander Volzhin
Calcutta
1996
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5
My current pet-line. I got sick of players preparing main-line Spanishes against
me knowing that they could confidently predict my first 20 moves.
4...d5
5 exd5 b5
Never
faced this one before but fortunately I’d done some homework on it.
6
Bf1 h6 7 Nxf7!?
Not
highly thought of by theory but the games Ellison–G.Flear, Isle of Man 1994
and Gretarsson–Hebden, Kopavogur 1994 had come to my attention. In both cases
the White players had played 7 Nxf7 and easily reached winning positions against
their illustrious opponents.
7...Kxf7
8 dxc6 Bc5 9 Be2 Ne4!
Glenn
played the uninspiring 9...Qd5 and ended up a pawn down for nothing.
10
0-0 Bxf2+!
After 10...Rf8
11 d4 exd4 12 Nd2 Mark’s compensation for the pawn was also
nebulous.
11
Rxf2 Nxf2 12 Qf1!
12
Kxf2 Qd4+ 13 Kf1 Rf8 looks suicidal. My opponent must have been
appalled at the course of the game since this is not the sort of position you
want when desperately needing a draw.
12...Rf8
13 Qxf2+ Kg8 14 Qe3 Qh4
Clearly
there is no time for shilly-shallying – Qe1 mate is Black’s only conceivable
threat. White can force an immediate draw with 15 Qg3
Qd4+ 16 Qe3 Qh4 17 Qg3 but I calculated 15
g3 Qh3 16 d3 Bg4 17 Nd2! Rf5 18 Bf1 consolidating and bashed out my
move. In retrospect 15 Bxb5!? (Volzhin) might have been better but I rejected it
as being too cheeky – White is already quite enough material up without
grabbing apparently irrelevant pawns.
15
g3 Qf6!
Whoops!
Now Black’s bishop is coming to h3. I
wasn’t going to tell my opponent in the post-mortem, but I completely missed
this move. Retreats really are much, much harder to see than blatantly
aggressive moves.
16
d3
Fortunately
I’m still on the board but in a state of shock. What made it potentially even
more embarrassing was that this (round 9) was my first outing on the demo.
boards and since this was my first big tournament as a GM I was very keen to
live up to my newly acquired status.
16...Bh3
17 Nd2
The
only sensible way to defend against mate. At least the onus is on Black to find
a way through now.
17...Rf7?
Seductive
but inaccurate. The correct way to triple on the f-file was demonstrated
afterwards by the inimitable Jonathan Speelman: 17...e4!!
18 d4 (White has to keep the position closed) Rad8! and now 19 c3 Rd5
and 20...Rf5 is very dangerous so White should probably bale out with 19
b3 Qxd4 20 Qxd4 Rxd4 21 Nf1 Bxf1 22 Be3 leading to a drawn ending.
18
b3 Qxc6
Because
18...Raf8 is effectively answered by 19
Ba3 Volzhin decides to grab material while he still can.
19
Ne4 Qxc2 20 Ba3 a5 21 Bc5
Establishing
firm control, or so I thought when I made the move. However, a few seconds
afterwards I suffered my second coronary of the game when I noticed that
21...Qb2 would wipe out most of my queenside. It turned out
afterwards that my opponent had avoided this because of 22
Re1 Qxa2 23 g4 picking up the stranded bishop. I tend to support his
view.
21...Be6
22 Qd2
A third
and possibly fatal heart attack seemed less likely with the queens off.
22...Qxd2
23 Nxd2 a4
I spent
ages wondering how to win the position after 24 b4 a3
– the a2 pawn is a very serious weakness – when I suddenly
realised that there was a much simpler solution.
24
bxa4 Rxa4 25 a3
Whether
it’s deserved or not White’s position is now completely winning - Black has
no counterplay and can only sit tight whilst his GM norm goes down the drain.
25...Rd7
26 Rc1 Bg4 27 Bf1 Bf5 28 Rc3 c6 29 Bb4 Ra6 30 Kf2 Be6 31 Ke3 Bd5 32 Nf3 Rf7 33
Be2 Bxf3 34 Bxf3 Rf6 35 Rc5 1-0
Quite
apart from having a depressingly hopeless position, Black was about to lose on
time.
However,
this isn’t the end of the story. My opponent took his defeat with equanimity,
behaved like a complete gentleman in the post-mortem and won crushingly the
following day to make a 10-round GM norm. My round 10 game, on the other hand,
was reported thus in the Indian Telegraph:
Howell,
playing with intentions of a draw from the beginning, rapidly traded pieces
expecting it to simplify his task, but did not realise that the concessions he
made by ignoring natural development of his forces would cost him the game.
Dolmatov converted his lead in development into material supremacy, and won
without much difficulty.
Needless
to say my impressions of the game don’t quite tally with this account (but even
so I don’t intend to let the readers of Kingpin
see it).