Saturday 7 February 2015

Tricks and traps

I am just looking over the games from the Gibraltar Masters, which was won by Hikaru Nakamura with 8.5/10. As in a big open swiss like this, there is plenty of variety in terms of the games, from long drawn out 2700 v 2700 clashes, to the 'oops I missed that' brevities.
It is often the latter that interest me most, so I present a small selection of very short games from the event.

In this first game Black made the familiar mistake of leaving the bishop hanging out on b4 while allowing Qa4+. But the big mistake was not calculating further, as 6. .. Nc6 7.d5 Bxc3+ 8.bxc3 exd5 9.cxd5 g5! 10.dxc6 b5!! at leaves Black in the game.

Holleland,Sigve (2116) - Mahoney,Ian (1838) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (7.106), 02.02.2015

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Bg5 h6 5.Bh4 d6 6.Qa4+ 1-0

In the second game, White is seemingly unaware of a similar trick in the Albin Counter Gambit, and greedily grabs the bishop on b4. After 8. ... exf2+ the White queen drops.

Kuenitz,Klaus (1680) - Bauer,Dieter (1728) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (5.122), 31.01.2015

1.d4 c5 2.Nf3 cxd4 3.Nxd4 d5 4.c4 e5 5.Nb5 d4 6.e3 Bb4+ 7.Bd2 dxe3 8.Bxb4 exf2+ 0-1

And in the final game 12.Nh5 might be termed a 'positional' trap, as after 13.Nxf6 Black has to play gxf6, with a ruined pawn structure. Instead 13. ... Qxf6 14.Bxd5 just wins as any recapture allows a winning check by White.

Compton,Alistair (2071) - Klug,Christian (1884) [A00]
The 2015 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festi Caleta Hotel, Gibraltar (6.103), 01.02.2015

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3 Nf6 8.Ne5 Bh7 9.Bc4 e6 10.Qe2 Nd5 11.0-0 Be7 12.Nh5 Bf6 13.Nxf6+ Qxf6 14.Bxd5 1-0


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