28 July 2012

Never Move a Pawn Twice in the Opening?

Q: What's almost as rare as chess960 tournaments? A: Published chess960 OTB games, where OTB is 'Over-The-Board', i.e. face-to-face, in contrast to online or correspondence games. In my previous post, Recent Comments, I was pleased to find a few games along with the results of the 2012 Schachclub Waldbronn - Chess960 Open. The seven round rapidplay event attracted 36 players and saw FM Josef Gheng and GM Klaus Bischoff emerge as co-winners with 6.0 points each, a full point ahead of third place.

The winners met in the fifth round with GM Bischoff playing White in a game that started with SP888 RBQKBRNN. After a few fairly routine moves, White played 5.d3, reaching the position shown in the top diagram; the start position is still discernible. Black replied 5...Nf7, when White pushed the d-Pawn once more, 6.d4.

Why not play the Pawn to d4 on the fifth move? I'm really not sure. Perhaps White was concerned about 5...Bf7, when the square c4 is available to the Bishop. After ...Nf7, the Bishop move is no longer an option. Whatever the reason, after 6.d4, the game took a tactical turn with 6...d6 7.c4 e5 8.Bc3 e4 9.d5 Ng4 10.Nd4 Bd7 11.h3 Ngh6, reaching the position shown in the bottom diagram.

The next few moves saw both players castle to the same side: 12.O-O c5 13.Nde2 O-O. Now White owned the long a1-h8 diagonal, where he built a Queen / Bishop battery. Black had no effective counterplay and was lost after 30 moves. To play through the complete game, here is the PGN as provided by schachclub-waldbronn.de.

[Event "Waldbronner Chess960 Open Deutsche Meisterschaft 2012 20'+5''/Zug"]
[Site "Waldbronn"]
[Date "2012.06.17"]
[Round "5"]
[White "Bischoff,Klaus"]
[Black "Gheng,Josef"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "2503"]
[BlackElo "2397"]
[WhiteTitle "GM"]
[BlackTitle "FM"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]
[Variant "Chess 960"]
[Variation "Chess 960"]
[SetUp "1"]
[FEN "rbqkbrnn/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RBQKBRNN w KQkq - 0 1"]
[Opening "960 Stellung 888"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "59"]
[EventDate "2012.06.17"]
[EventSponsor "Sparkasse Karlsruhe-Ettlingen"]
[EventType "swiss (rapid)"]
[EventRounds "7"]
[Section "Open"]
[TimeControl "1200+5"]
[Mode "OTB"]
[ECO "Chess 960"]
[Annotator "Schachclub Waldbronn"]
[Editor "Clemens Linowski"]

{Runde 5: Chess960-Start-Position 888} 1.f4 f5 2.Nf3 c6 3.e3 Nf6 4.Ng3 g6 5.d3 Nf7 6.d4 d6 7.c4 e5 8.Bc3 e4 9.d5 Ng4 (9...exf3 10.Bxf6+) 10.Nd4 Bd7 11.h3 Ngh6 12.O-O c5 13.Nde2 O-O 14.b3 Bc7 15.a4 Bd8 16. Ra2 Re8 17.Ba1 Be7 18.Bxe4 {W steht positionell besser, sodass er hier einschlagen kann} Bf8 {S nimmt nicht:} (18...fxe4 19.Nxe4 Nf5 20.Qc3 Qd8 21.N2g3 Bf8 22.Nxf5 Rxe4 23.Nxd6 Rxe3 24.Qxe3 (24.Nxf7 Rxc3 25.Nxd8 Rxb3 26.Ne6 Bxe6 27.dxe6 Re3 28.Be5) 24...Bxd6 25.Qc3 Bf8 26.Re2 Qh4) 19.Bd3 Bg7 20.Bxg7 Kxg7 21.e4 Qd8 22.exf5 Bxf5 23.Bxf5 Nxf5 24. Nxf5+ gxf5 25.Ng3 Kg6 26.Re1 Rxe1+ 27.Qxe1 Qf6 28.Kh2 h6 29.Re2 Qd4 30.Re7 {S gibt auf - Black abandoned} (30.Re7 Rf8 31.Qe6+ Qf6 32.Qe2) 1-0

That must set some kind of a record for most tags in a single PGN game score.

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