Author: blass uri
Date: 14:57:36 08/30/98
Go up one level in this thread
On August 30, 1998 at 16:43:31, Amir Ban wrote: > >In the first game the issues were relatively simple. The second game was a >different matter. The game was very difficult for both sides. Junior needed a >lot of tactical power and understanding of the position just to stay out of >trouble in this game. It ultimately failed in this, but in analyzing the game >(and I'm not done with this yet), I'm wondering how it managed to get so far. > >The game was not easy for Yudasin either, and he was not hiding this fact, and >was of the opinion that many other GM's would find the game difficult. He had, >though, the advantage of playing one of his favorite setups, which, as he told >us, he had played and won against Salov, A.Greenfeld and others. > >After 7.Nc3 Junior was out of book. 7.0-0 is the more usual move, and indeed >Yudasin confessed to have mixed up the order of moves. Before playing 7...Qc7 >Junior considered for a long time the weird plan 7...Bd6 8.e5 Bb8. > >10.Nxc6 was clearly intended as a provocation. At shorter time controls, Junior >would have fallen and played the highly problematic Bxh2+. On the next move, >Yudasin showed with 11.Qh5 that he knew this opening well and was going exactly >where he wanted to. 11... Be5 is necessary to prevent e5, which would make >black's position already hopeless. > >Junior probably showed good judgement in refusing to castle here, but not >castling is also a problem of course. In considering 13...g6 Junior was briefly >excited at the prospect of 13... g6 14.Qh4 d5, and apparently gaining a big >advantage because of the threat to the pinned Nc3, before realizing 15.exd5 cxd5 >16.Nxd5 that it is in fact the black Be5 that is pinned. Tricky :( After 14...d6 >Junior expected 15.Bb2 Qe7 16.Qxe7+ Kxe7 with slight advantage for white. >Yudasin said he would have played this if not for the king's position on e7 >which would be fortunate for black and make this hard to exploit. > >On move 19 everybody on ICC (and Junior too) expected the GM to play f4. Junior >expected 19.f4 Bg7 20.e5 and evaluated about -0.25. Yudasin gave this move a lot >of thought, and after 19.Qg4 we told him everyone expected f4. He smiled and >said: "Of course they do, but I have my style". > >20...h4 caught Yudasin off guard. He was clearly surprised, said so, and later >in the game complained several times that his 20.Qg5 is inaccurate and he should >play Qh4. What greatly astonished me is that instead of agonizing for half an >hour (he really had plenty of time), he played 21.h3 in a matter of seconds, >with a smug comment that no computer would ever understand this move. > >Junior's time to blow a big chance came two moves later, when it played >22...Rh5?, preferring it narrowly over 22...Qc5. Yudasin immediately pointed out >that Rh5 is much more effective after Qc5, which makes the black queen active >and pushes the white queen to the inactive g4 square. The reason Rh5 was >actually played is probably related to some deep tactics miscalculated. It >expected to answer 23.Qe3 with 23...c5 but later greatly lowered its opinion of >this move and was forced into the silly-looking 23...Rb7 (to stop the white >queen from penetrating). > >I noted that several people here thought 25...Bh8 to be the losing move. Neither >we nor the GM thought so during the game. Indeed, Bxf4, which was almost played >by Junior was the real loser. Shay commented while waiting for this move that if >it is played, we may as well resign and go to bed. Junior5 wanted to do Bxf4 after some hours on my pentium200MMX with an evaluation of small advantage for white(after a long time but less than half an hour I saw that it wanted to play Bh8) I think it is too early to resign after Bxf4(maybe Junior has a mistake in the evaluation and black is losing but you cannot be sure about it in the game). Uri > Yudasin agreed. Without the >dark-squares bishop black is lost.
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