Beauty and the (Silicon) Beast

I was very pleased with the following blitz game, which ends with a queen sac and a beautiful mate administered by Harrwitz bishops. But Black could have avoided mate with 8...Kd8!, though he's still quite lost. When I analyzed the game later with Houdini 3, it pointed out an even clearer win for me on move 8! Do you see it?

Chicago Blaze ties Dallas Destiny 2-2, advances in playoffs!

The Blaze came in with the best regular season record and only needed to tie Dallas on Monday night to make it to the semi-finals. A tie was all they could manage, but that was enough to advance!

Here's the Board 1, matchup GM Yury Shulman of the Blaze vs. GM Cristian Chirila:


White eliminated Black's "good" bishop on move 10, but Black's position is still fully playable. After move 36, it's easy to see that White wants to evacuate the king from the kingside in preparation for the breakthrough. So White moved the king from h1 to d4 in the middle game!

To me, phase 1 of White's redeployment (moves 36-60) wasn't so hard to understand, but I was really impressed by Yury's second reorganization (moves 60-66). Every available unit is needed for the attack, including the lowly h-pawn!

This was the last game to finish: Yury kept the draw comfortably in hand and patiently improved his position until it became clear that he would need to win for the Blaze to advance.  And win he did: congratuations, Grandmaster!

A nasty trap in the Dutch

The Dutch Defense (1.d4 f5) is one of the most uncompromising defenses to 1.d4. A lot of people are afraid to play it because White has a lot of sharp ways to try to destroy it, such as the Staunton Gambit (2.e4), 2.Bg5, and 2.Nc3. Illinois master Alan Watson wrote a book in 1995 about various anti-Dutch gambits with g4, including 2.g4, 2.Qd3 d5 3.g4, and 2.h3 followed by 3.g4. If Black knows the theory, or can manage to find the right moves over the board, he or she can successfully counter all of White's sharp lines. If not, Black may be in for a nasty shock, as in the game below.

Take a look at the diagram position. White has sacrificed a pawn to obtain semi-open g and h files - sort of like a kingside Benko Gambit. At first glance, Black's last move, 5...Ng4-f6, might seem like a reasonable move, holding onto the extra pawn. At second blush, you realize that it is a terrible blunder, which is simply annihilated by White's sixth move, which mates or wins a rook.

Korchnoi introduced 2.h3!? and 3.g4 to modern master play in 1979, winning a crushing victory against the Swiss master Kaenel. The point is to avoid allowing Black to return the gambit pawn with a timely ...g3, e.g. 1.d4 f5 2.Qd3 d5 3.g4 hxg4 4.h3 g3 ("!" - Watson) 5.fxg3 Nf6 6.Bf4 c5 7.c3 Qb6 and Black stood well in Quigley-DeFotis, Midwest Masters 1985. It wasn't long before analysts found the strongest defense to Korchnoi's 2.h3. Well, actually rediscovered it - well over a century earlier Howard Staunton (yes, he of Staunton Gambit and Morphy-avoiding fame) had recommended declining White's gambit with 2...Nf6 3.g4 d5! 4.g5 Ne4, leading to an even game (The Chess Player's Handbook (1857!), pp. 381-82). One hundred and thirty-two years later, GM Larry Christiansen and IM Jeremy Silman recommended the same line (Dutch Defense (1989), p. 144), referring to 3...d5! as "Christiansen's move." Nothing new under the sun and all that.