Thursday, November 5, 2009

Eric Rosen knocks off his first grandmaster

Fedorowicz-Rosen
Black to play and win

Eric Rosen, a 15-year-old student at Niles North High School, had an OK summer as a chess player.  He won the U.S. Junior Open, earned the National Master title, and beat his first Grandmaster in the final round of the 2009 U.S. Open.

GM John Fedorowicz introduced a risky-looking but basically sound opening novelty, which Eric managed to neutralize.  Even GMs can make mistakes: in the above position, Fedorowicz has just played his king from d2 to c3.  White would have been perfectly OK after 16.Kd2-c1!, but Black could have forced a draw.  (For full analysis of this game, see the September Illinois Chess Bulletin.)

But after 16.Kd2-c3??, Black has a quick kill.  Can you find it?


3 comments:

Unknown said...

Bill,

I love these, but are you going to tell us?

DC

Bill Brock said...

No :-)

But you can find the entire game here.

Frederick Rhine said...

1...Bb4+! and White stands up (2.Kxb4 Qxb2+ and White's king is not long for this world.