{"id":48,"date":"2007-12-02T09:11:32","date_gmt":"2007-12-02T17:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=48"},"modified":"2007-12-02T09:19:56","modified_gmt":"2007-12-02T17:19:56","slug":"round-robin-bliss-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/?p=48","title":{"rendered":"Round-robin bliss, part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the fourth round of the Santa Cruz Cup I played my best game yet (which isn’t saying much). I’m now sitting in very good shape, with a 4-0 start including wins over my two highest-rated opponents. However, there’s a lot of chess remaining. Ratings don’t mean that much when everybody is bunched up within 100 or 150 points.<\/p>\n

I won the game primarily because of a nice tactical shot (see below) that came just when it seemed as if the game might be turning in my opponent’s favor. I played a clean game with no mistakes, except right before the time control, where Fritz finds an elegant win that I missed. Here are the two most interesting positions of the game.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Dana Mackenzie – Dan Burkhard<\/em>, White to move.<\/p>\n

Dan had just played 22. … Nb6-c8, a superficially very attractive move because it threatens to bring the knight to e4. However, White seizes the advantage with a tactical\u00c2\u00a0idea based on the undefended position of his rook on c7. Can you find it?<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Mackenzie – Burkhard<\/em>, White to move.<\/p>\n

Black has just played 37. … Ke7-d6, hoping to play … Ke5 removing the defender of White’s advanced pawn on e5. In this position I settled for 38. Rxd4+? Ke5 39. Ke3 and now Dan gave me an early Christmas present with 39. … Bxf3?? 40. Nd3+! resigns. However, he could still have put up a fight with 39. … Rg3 40. Nd5 Kxe6 41. Kf4. White\u00c2\u00a0will probably\u00c2\u00a0win eventually, but he’s still go some work to do.<\/p>\n

Instead of 38. Rxd4, Fritz finds a beautiful forced win for White, based on some tricky knight maneuvers. Can you see it?<\/p>\n

Answer to first problem: <\/em>I played 23. f5! The main point is 23. … gf? 24. Qg3+, winning the unprotected rook on c7. Another important point is that if Black tries to set up a pin on the f-file with 23. … Qh4 (or any other Queen move), White can break the pin with 24. Nf4!, threatening a knight fork on e6. Finally, if 23. … ef 24. Qxd5+ (24. Nf4 is also good), White has a dominating position.<\/p>\n

Answer to second problem:<\/em> The move I missed was 38. Ne2! This is a pretty straightforward move, but what comes after it is really cool. Black must play 38. … Kxe6, because otherwise he will be two pawns down with no compensation. Then comes 39. Nxd4+ Ke5 40. f4+! (the key move!) and Black’s king has no good squares:<\/p>\n

a) 40. … Kf6 41. Nxc6 bc 42. Rd6+ and White mops up all the queenside pawns;<\/p>\n

b) 40. … Kxf4 41. Ne6+ wins the rook;<\/p>\n

c) 40. … Ke4 41. Ne6! threatens 42. Rd4 mate! Note also that Black’s king interferes with the bishop, so that 41. … Rg2+ is impossible. Instead Black’s only defense is 41. … Rd7, but now White wins with another fork, 42. Nc5+.<\/p>\n

What an amazing line! With only a couple minutes left before the time control, I didn’t even come close to finding this. It would have been a great way to finish off the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the fourth round of the Santa Cruz Cup I played my best game yet (which isn’t saying much). I’m now sitting in very good shape, with a 4-0 start including wins over my two highest-rated opponents. However, there’s a lot of chess remaining. Ratings don’t mean that much when everybody is bunched up within […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,16,12],"tags":[88,91,92],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-endings","category-games","category-positions","category-tournaments","tag-forks","tag-four","tag-fritz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}