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Michigan |
October
1999
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Chess
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Online
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B. Ciaffone (2200) - R.
Garrison (1938)
[C21/01] Center Game
1999 Michigan Open (1)
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1.d4 e5
| The only other time I faced Ray he played a Nimzo-Indian
against me. Here he offers an unsound gambit, but its acceptance
is not a line I have studied. |
| In the few times I have faced the sequence 1.d4
e5, the move 2.e4 has been my choice, objectively not as strong as simply
gobbling the offered pawn, but a line I know very well. The reason
is when I open 1.e4 and we play a double king pawn, my second move is 2.d4.
Here’s why: I aim for the Scotch Opening, normally reached after
2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4, which has been resurrected from the dead by
World Champion Garry Kasparov with deadly effect, and of course many others
following his fashion. The fly in the ointment for this sequence
is Black can play 2...Nf6 (instead of 2...Nc6). This is the Petroff
Defense, not so dynamic, but a sound opening hard to break down, and often
used by Karpov and Jusupov. In the last few years it has been taken
up by the number three player in the world, Vladimir Kramnik, who is putting
up a formidable roadblock for the white e-pawn players unsatisfied with
a draw. When I open with 1.e4, my cure for this Russian drawing disease
— the Petroff is also called the Russian Game — is to answer 1...e5 with
2.d4, and after 2...exd4 to play 3.Nf3, inviting 3...Nc6 and a Scotch.
Black is not obliged to play 3...Nc6, but he usually does. |
| My opponent sensed that he was getting into some
well-prepared stuff — something his first move showed a strong desire to
avoid — and went into a deep think. The result was 3...d5, perhaps
not such a strong move, but one that avoids transposing to the Scotch.
I have run into 3...d5 a few times in Internet blitz games, but this is
the first time I have faced it in a tournament. |
| 4.Qxd4 is stronger, as we shall see. After
4.Qxd4 Nf6! 5.exd5 Qxd5 6.Bc4 Qxd4 7.Nxd4, we have the game position except
with the moves Bc4 for White and ...Nf6 for Black thrown in. The added
move-pair favors White because the defense ...a6 is not available to meet
the threat of Nb5, because White will castle and then check with Re1, and
Black does not have the move ...Ne7 available to parry it. This means
he will have to defend against the Nb5 threat with 7...Bb4 8.c3 Ba5.
But after 9.Bg5 Black has to either put up with a broken pawn structure
or play 9...Nbd7 blocking the development of his queen’s bishop.
White will be better. |
| During the game I thought 4...Nf6 was better, but
it transposes to the weak line for Black we just looked at. |
| Now by 6...a6! Black would have close to equality,
since after 7.Bc4 Be6 8. 0-0 Ne7 there is no disruptive check on the e-file.
Maybe White should instead play 7.Bd3 Bc5 8.Nf5, but after 8...Bxf5 9.Bxf5
Ne7 10.Be4 Nbc6 Black’s lead in development and the balanced pawn structure
neutralize white’s pair of bishops. |
| A mistake. Black chases the knight to the
square it wants to go. |
| Black has been forced to meet the threat against
c7 by moving the knight to the edge of the board, a positional deficiency
that he never recovers from. |
| Black shows aggressiveness and good judgment on
each of his last three moves by tempting White to win the c7-pawn, instead
of playing a passive defense, but White does not want to do this yet because
it lets the Na6 back into the game. |
| Better is 12.Ne2 retaining an advantage. White
chases the bishop to a nicer square. |
| Black should have played 12...Ba5, protecting the
pawn on c7. Now he is in trouble. |
| This move highlights White’s advantage, winning
the c-pawn under good conditions. |
| White has consolidated his pawn plus. There
are opposite-colored bishops, but the presence of rooks and a knight for
each side means that White has excellent chances for victory. The
game went 58 moves total and White won. Though there was some interesting
endgame play, I will not present the long technical part of the game. |
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| This game should be of interest to any e-pawn players
who use the Scotch Opening and would like to dodge the Petroff Defense.
After 1.e4 e5 the line 2.d4!? exd4 3.Nf3 is an interesting way of bypassing
the Petroff and inviting the Scotch. I got the idea from an Inside
Chess magazine game several years ago where Ljubojevic used it to good
effect against Seirawan, and the latter in annotating the game found a
lot of merit in the concept. The “Garrison Defense” 3...d5 is one
of the ways Black can make this move-order have independent significance,
and White should be prepared to face it on occasion. |
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| How does a mismatch pairing like this occur in the
second round of a tournament? First, the open section allows anyone
to enter, a policy that I do not agree with. Second, the lowest rated
player in a section gets a bye when there is an odd number of players,
which is reasonable; he gets a full point for this, which is reasonable;
but he gets paired as a full pointer, which leads to the situation we have
here, and is not reasonable when you actually see the consequences.
In my opinion, a person who gets a bye in the first round should be paired
as a half-pointer, just like someone who had requested a bye in the first
round would be, so he will be playing against someone closer to himself
in rating, and the integrity of the tournament would not be affected as
much. |
B. McCarter (1600) - B.
Ciaffone (2200)
[D43/01] Semi-Slav
1999 Michigan Open (2)
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1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.Nf3
| One more time I need a symbol for, “A perfectly
good move, but not for the plan which the player intends.” White
wants to play Bf4, so he should do it at once, to leave f3 available for
his queen, as in the sequence 4.Bf4 dxc4 5.e3 b5 6.a4 Bb4? 7.axb5 cxb5
8.Qf3 hitting the Ra8, and after 8...Qd5 9.Qg3 Black is sunk, as I found
out the hard way about five years ago. |
| Now we see that because White coupled Nf3 with Bf4
he has allowed Black to capture and hold the c-pawn without having to suffer. |
| This combination gives White an isolated d-pawn
to accompany his pawn minus. |
| Relatively better was 18.a5 |
| Kicking the knight back to f3 before the White bishop
can activate by taking that position. |
22.Nf3 Nd5 23.Rac1 Rac8 24.Rxc8 Qxc8 25.Qxc8 Rxc8 26.Bf1
Nc3 (48), 0-1.
| I will not give the rest of the score, since Black
is a pawn up with a vice-like grip on the position at this point, though
the game actually lasted 48 moves. Let me once again say that I do
not think a mismatch pairing like this does any good to either player.
I was hurt later on because my tiebreak points from this game were so low
the modified median system discarded this game from being used (your lowest
game is not part of your tiebreak total). Just in case any of you
1600 players are thinking it is nice to be paired against a master even
though there is a huge gulf in ratings, please think how you feel paying
an entry fee plus travel and lodging expenses, and then getting paired
against some kid sporting a 1000 rating. The system of pairing someone
who gets a first round bye the same as a person who has won a game can
detract from your tournament as well as mine. This inappropriate
pairing method comes from the USCF, but the MCA is not required to follow
their stupidity. |
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A. Palmer (2058) - B.
Ciaffone (2200)
[B87/02] Sicilian: Scheveningen (Sozin)
1999 Michigan Open (4)
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1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 d6
| This is the Scheveningen Variation of the Sicilian
Defense, characterized by black pawns at e6 and d6. It is a sound
and solid system, but there are a large number of attacking formations
for White that Black must be prepared to meet. Most grandmasters
who play this line for Black prefer the Nadjorf move-order of 2...d6 and
5...a6, with e6 to follow. This sidesteps the dangerous Keres Attack
6.g4 that is a White option against the direct sequence that I chose here. |
| White opts for the Sozin Variation, popularized
by Bobby Fischer and used extensively by Nigel Short in his 1993 title
match with Kasparov. Sharp chess results, and this game is no exception. |
| The other Black option here is 6...Nc6. Kasparov
used both systems in games with Short. I had been getting into Scheveningen
positions via a move-order that had a knight committed to c6, and know
that system, but several months ago I decided to employ the a6 line in
my new move-order because I like the way Black’s counterplay develops when
he gets in b5 and Bb7. The ease with which I got a good position
in this game encourages me to use the a6 system again. |
| I do not think White’s last move is the most accurate
here, and prefer 7.Bb3 because it is less committal. |
| White should try to give his bishop targets by using
f4-f5 to loosen Black’s position instead of cautiously defending his e-pawn.
The Sozin often calls for White to sacrifice the e-pawn. |
| Black does not want to open kingside lines by h6
and permits his Nf6 to be displaced. |
| The straight-forward positional move of 14.h4 intending
h5 and g6 was preferable to this aggressive sacrifice of a piece. |
14...b4!
| GM Larry Evans’ maxim is, “The way to refute your
opponent’s sacrifice is to accept it.” Chess is not so easy that
we can play by maxims all the time; some sacs are better declined, and
this looks like one of them to me. White will get a lot of play if
black greedily snaps the bishop, whereas he gets a clear advantage by declining.
White’s next is forced, since if he moves the Nc3 away where it no longer
can hop into d5 Black can take the Bd5 with impunity. |
| Now White’s attacked Nc3 is faced with unpleasant
choices. It can either retreat to the rear by 16.Nb1 with advantage
to Black, or it can sacrifice itself on 16.d5 and let White have the initiative
a piece down. Palmer opts to go forward with guns blazing rather
than run from the fight into an inferior and passive position. |
| Black is happy to accept this sac because he does
not see enough compensation for his opponent. |
| Other moves such as 17...Bf8 also look sufficient
to hold. |
| Maybe 18...gxf5 is even better, but this looks good. |
| White boldly sacrifices another piece, but there
was no getting off the train, and he sees that Black will have to give
one piece back. |
| By returning part of his booty black retains the
advantage. |
| It was not too late for Black to dump the game with
23...Bxh4? 24.Qh5+ picking up the Ba4. |
| The move 27.e5 was better, though White would have
difficulties holding. |
| Even though White has three pawns for the piece,
the mighty Be5 allows Black to control the game from here on. The
bishop makes sure White’s passed h-pawn never scores a touchdown, stops
all center breaks, and assails the position of the white king. Strategically
the game is over, and I do not need to annotate the mop-up. |
| The time control has been cleared, so White resigned.
If there is a moral to this chess game, it is that you cannot tell whether
to accept a sacrifice by reading a general platitude that a famous grandmaster
writes in a book. You must look at the position on the board, because
platitudes have exceptions. |
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M. Ballicora (2160) - B.
Ciaffone (2200)
[B26/04] Sicilian: Closed
1999 Michigan Open (6)
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1.e4 c5
| Miguel is originally from Argentina, a player who
displayed talent as a teenager and then abandoned chess for a long time.
For a couple of years now he has pursued chess with renewed interest and
success. He displays versatility in his opening choices. In
last year’s event he also had white against me, and there opened with the
queen’s pawn. That result was a draw. Miguel is a master-strength
player in the middlegame and endgame, but has a weakness that hurts his
results. I consider him to be, along with my friend Dave Hahn, one
of the leading Michigan members of the Deep Thinkers Club, that group of
chessplayers that want to make the best possible move in the opening and
early middlegame—and do not seem to care sufficiently how long it takes
to determine what it is. |
| White has elected to play the Closed Variation,
abstaining from the move d4 that enters the labyrinths of the most analyzed
opening in chess, the Open Sicilian. This is a good practical decision
against an opening buff like myself |
| There are two main lines for White in the Closed
Sicilian, of about equal worth. One of them is 6.f4 and the other
is 6.Be3, as played. My reply is considered the most accurate here;
Black starts his queenside counterplay at once, deferring the development
of his Ng8 for a short while to deter White from playing Bh6, trading the
fianchettoed black bishop, and launching an attack against the weakened
squares in the king’s field. |
| White’s last was unusual but not bad, as he does
not want his Nc3 pushed back to the first rank. Known replies for
Black are 8...a5 and 8...Nd4, but my move 8...e6 is natural and reasonable. |
| According to Miguel it would have been more accurate
for White to develop the kingside, and I agree. |
| So the white knight eventually is driven backward
anyway. |
| The standard idea for Black in the Closed Sicilian,
and the reason he usually prefers his king’s knight on e7 rather than f6;
freeing the f-pawn to go forward and nip a white kingside attack in the
bud. |
| Black prevents the enemy horse from reaching c4. |
| Black allows his center pawns to be fragmented in
order to get open lines on the queenside. |
| It is essential that Black make this move now, as
if he waits the white queen will go to d1 and Black will be unable to capture
on c3 because the white queen will no longer be attacked by the capture. |
| It is evident that Black has the initiative.
Miguel was now in time pressure. |
| At this point Miguel had two minutes left to make
15 moves, and I had 12 minutes left. This late in the tournament
(round five) I see no reason to use the fast time control of 40/90 that
had been in use to here. Furthermore, when a 90 minute period is
necessary, it would be more sensible to have the time control at the 30
move mark rather than 40. |
| White sacs a knight while in extreme time pressure.
This Miguel has cohones. |
| I decline the sac and offer a knight myself.
Now the board is on fire with pieces hanging all over the place and hardly
any time on the clock. Somehow both players find the best moves in
this mess. |
27.Nf6+ Kf7 28.Qxd4 Bxc5 29.Rxc5 Qxc5 30.Qxc5 Rxc5 31.Nd7
Rbc8
| Rats. I thought in the excitement that I was
winning, but this fork recovers the exchange he was down. |
| My opponent offered a draw here. I thought
the position was drawn and was down to about a minute on the clock, so
I accepted the offer. Subsequent analysis showed this to be a very
bad decision, as Black after tucking his king away on h6 escapes the checks
and has a winning position, according to Ben Finegold. |
| It is evident the clock played a large role in the
result of this game, as it did in many other games of the 1999 Michigan
Open. Many of us would like to see a more sensible time control used
in the event that determines our State Champion for that year. |
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| This game took place on board one in the final round.
Ariel Levi, after a bad start in the tournament, decided to withdraw and
re-enter. On his second try he did very well, giving up only one
point in six rounds, and was up a half-point on the field. I was
one of several players within striking distance, and was happy to have
my fate in my own hands, as opposed to needing someone else to beat the
leader even if I won my game. Needless to say, I was in a must-win
situation. Both Levi and I were due for white, but he being ½
a point ahead got the color he was due for. |
A. Levi (2138) - B.
Ciaffone (2200)
[A13/11] English: Angincourt (King’s Knight)
1999 Michigan Open (7)
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1.c4 e6
| The English Opening is an unpleasant one to face
with black when needing a win because it is so solid. I considered
doing something to unbalance the position like playing a Dutch Defense
with 1...f5 or a Reverse Sicilian with 1...e5, but in the end figured it
was better to play my normal system, which although not so dynamic is at
least something I know quite thoroughly. |
| Once again, I find myself yearning for an annotation
symbol that means, “A perfectly good move, but not the best one for what
my opponent has in mind.” Levi intends to meet d5 with a fianchetto
of his king’s bishop. He should therefore play 2.g3 d5 3.Bg2, preventing
Black from setting up a counter-fianchetto. If Black had played 1.c4
Nf6 then White would have the time for 2.Nf3 before fianchettoing, but
here he does not. |
| If White had played the immediate recapture 5.Qxc4
then Black would have simply played 5...b6, and neither 6.Bg2 Bb7 nor 6.
Qc6 Rb8 7.Bg2 Bb7 give White anything because Black has managed to oppose
the Reti-Catalan bishop with his own. Levi’s move is likely the best;
at least he has a target on b5 to shoot at. |
| The move 7.Qc6 would not have changed anything because
after 7...Rb8 the black bishop gets to b7 anyway, and now the black rook
is in position to support the b-pawn if this is needed. The position
is now equal. |
| White switches from the Reti-Catalan set-up (pawn
on d3 being usual) to the Catalan proper. But this line in the Catalan
with Qa4+ and Qxc4 is not as good as the Catalan Gambit for White, where
he eschews the immediate recapture of the pawn in favor of development.
Here, White makes the positional error of making his queen’s position on
the c-line vulnerable to a black rook at c8. “Do not open lines that
will benefit your opponent” is an important chess principle. Even
though this setup of Levi’s for White has been played a number of times
by grandmasters, most of the decisive games have been won by Black, who
is now slightly better. The best move was to castle, with the idea
of playing d3 rather than d4. |
| Now Her Majesty will have to evacuate the c2 square.
Note how effective the time gained for queenside development by postponing
the move Nf6 has been for Black, enabling him to counter-fianchetto and
control the c-file speedily. |
| A move that has been played here by grandmasters,
but it blocks the completion of development. 11.Nc3 looks better. |
| Opening lines before the opponent is fully developed. |
| Of course, letting Black develop his queen’s bishop
with tempo is undesirable, but the recapture 11.Nxd4?? would have cost
Black a piece after 11...Ne5, because the white queen will eventually be
driven off the defense of the Nd4. |
| No rest for the weary; the white queen has to trudge
back to her original square. The poor girl has now moved seven times,
and in her meandering been attacked by a rook and both bishops, a sure
sign the opening has been misplayed by White. |
| The position after White’s sixteenth has actually
been reached in grandmaster play, in a game that started out with the Qa4+
variation of the Catalan. In that game, Hort-Hubner, 1970, Black
played 16...Re8 and went on to win. My move is also good. Levi
was unhappy with the way he played this game, but his moves were quite
plausible at the time they were made. |
| White did not like the looks of 17.Bd6 Re8, as Black
is threatening to play e5 and entomb the bishop. |
| Retrograde development is ugly, but there was no
other way to hold the pawn. Levi now had a dreadful position, and
was in severe time pressure to boot. |
| Black wants to put his king’s rook on d8, but he
must first prevent Bg5. |
| Black should have played the superior 22...Nbd3!,
since 23.f4? loses material to 23...Nxc1 24.fxe5 Qxe5 25.Rxc1 Rxc1 26.Qxc1
dropping a knight and leaving Black up a pawn. But my move still
leaves Black well on top. |
| The black pieces have all taken up commanding positions,
and White cannot meet their many threats. |
| As often happens, a positional advantage releases
into a decisive combination. The rest is a massacre. |
28.Bxb2 Rc2 29.Re2 Rxe2 30.Qxe7 Rc1 31.Nd2 Rxb2 32.Rc1
Ba5 33.Rc8+ Kh7 34.f5 Qxf5 35.Kh1 Rxd2 0-1. |
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| This was one of my best games of chess. Anyone
interested in the Reti-Catalan opening should study these notes carefully,
because they reveal a lot of the critical ideas in that opening, particularly
the early move-order that both sides should use. |
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| As a result of the Michigan Open game Levi-Ciaffone
there was a three-way tie for first place between Don Pray, Bob Ciaffone,
and Kevin Czuhai for the Michigan title of 1999 State Champion. The
order of finish was the order just mentioned, according to the tiebreak
system used by the Michigan Chess Association. Let me explain what
happened as a result of the tiebreak system used. All three of the
players who tied had played against Ariel Levi. For that Pray and
Ciaffone received 5 tiebreak points, because that was Levi’s final score.
But Czuhai received only 3 tiebreak points for playing Levi. The
reason is he played against “Levi 1”, who withdrew from the tourney after
getting only one point in the first three rounds. “Levi 1” was given
½ a point for each unplayed round, bringing his total up to three
for the tournament. Had Kevin received the same number of tiebreak
points as we did playing against “Levi 2”, his name would now be engraved
on the State Championship cup. |
| I have no personal ax to grind, as no tiebreak system
would change where I finished. And I am happy to see Don Pray rewarded
for playing the best tournament of his life. But I do not like to
see a tiebreak system used that is intrinsically unfair. To me, it
is obvious that “Levi 1” and “Levi 2” should be treated as the same chessplayer
for
tiebreak purposes, and any person who played against Ariel Levi is
entitled to get the same number of tiebreak points as any other, whatever
that number may be. The purpose of a tiebreak system is to reward
the person that faces the tougher competition in a tournament with the
higher finishing place; this is not accomplished when people get differing
scores for playing the same person. I might add that the people who
are willing to spend extra money to rebuy are often like Ariel Levi, strong
players who hope to have a chance at a top spot in that tournament the
second time around, so it is unfair to not give some entrant full credit
for playing such a person. We are required to treat someone who rebuys
as a totally new person in determining his score, but there is no
sensible reason to do so in determining the score of his opponents. |
| The tiebreak system that should be used when rebuys
are allowed is not addressed in the USCF Rulebook. This is a serious
deficiency. We should not treat playing a person who reenters a tournament
the same way we treat playing a person who goes home. On a rebuy
we know where that player finishes; we do not need to use the artificial
method of adding a half point for each round unplayed. The rounds
actually were played. If the USCF is not yet ready to do the
right thing here and establish a fair method, the MCA should step in and
lead the way. |
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© 1999 Michigan Chess
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