![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.danamackenzie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/steger-1.jpg\")
FEN: 1r2n1k1\/3r1pbp\/bqn1p1p1\/p1ppP3\/1p3PNQ\/2PPBB2\/PP2N1PP\/3R1RK1 w – – 0 19<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me first say something about my general philosophy in the Grand Prix, and why I like playing it. Basically White throws his pawns and pieces at the kingside, and Black throws his pawns at the queenside. The computer generally says that the positions are equal. But White always has a little trump card, or an ace in the hole: the target of his attack is Black’s king, while the target of Black\u2019s attack is just some pawns on the queenside. This always makes me feel that in games between humans, the so-called equality is not so equal. We\u2019ll see that play out in this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eric has just played 18. \u2026 b4, which I thought was an excellently timed move. He played it at a moment when I was not prepared to answer 19. c4. I spent a very long time on this position, more than 25 minutes. Most of that time was spent trying to get 19. Nf6+ to work, but it doesn\u2019t because of 19. \u2026 Nxf6 20. ef Qd8. I looked at tons of other ideas: Qf2, Nh6+, b3, Rd2, etc. Finally I just said, \u201cTo hell with it, I will play the most assertive move,\u201d and played <\/p>\n\n\n\n
19. d4?! …<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n One of my mottos is: \u201cLong think, wrong think.\u201d When I take 25 minutes on a move, it’s almost certainly not the best. This morning the computer convinced me that 19. Nh6+ was the best move, but I was very reluctant to play that move last night, because I was still hoping to insert the knight into f6 eventually. Frankly, that was my answer to the Mike Splane Question: How am I going to win this game? And you\u2019ll see that I was right!<\/p>\n\n\n\n The problem with 19. d4 is that Black can play 19. \u2026 Bxe2\n20. Bxe2, followed by either 20. \u2026 c4 or 20. \u2026 bc with a good position. That\u2019s\none reason it took me so long to decide on this move. But Eric surprised me by\nalmost instantly playing <\/p>\n\n\n\n 19. \u2026 c4?! <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With this move he chooses to lock in his own bishop rather\nthan first trading it off. I don\u2019t understand this decision, and thought it must\nbe a mistake \u2013 which perhaps explains my rather impulsive followup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 20. f5!? \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This move is almost always \u201cin the air\u201d in the Grand Prix\nSicilian. Strategically, it\u2019s a fantastic move because it opens the c1-h6 diagonal\nfor the bishop, opens the f4 square for the knight, takes the f5 square away\nfrom the opponent\u2019s knight, and possibly opens the f-file for the rook. But the\ndevil is always in the details. This move costs a pawn, so you have to consider\ncarefully whether all of these other positional factors actually add up to compensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In this case, I wasn\u2019t actually sure that I had\ncompensation. But one thing I was sure of was that I didn\u2019t want to sit around\nand defend my queenside with a move like Rd2, because sooner or later Black\nwill penetrate along the b-file and the a2 and c3 pawns will be hard for White\nto hold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So the choice was: a long and probably hopeless defense on\nthe queenside, or an unclear attack on the kingside that at least will throw\nBlack back on his heels and force him to defend. To me, it was a pretty clear\nchoice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 20. \u2026 ef 21. Nf6+?! \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Rybka still likes 21. Nh6+ better and thinks that White is\nonly down by 0.3 pawns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 21. \u2026 Nxf6 22. ef Qd8 23. Bg5 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n This was, of course, the point of the pawn sac 20. f5. White is now able to defend the \u201cbone in the throat\u201d pawn on f6. But, unfortunately, it’s not for long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 23. \u2026 h6 24. Bxh6 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n FEN: 1r1q2k1\/3r1pb1\/b1n2PpB\/p2p1p2\/1ppP3Q\/2P2B2\/PP2N1PP\/3R1RK1 b – – 0 24<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course I was expecting Black to play 24. \u2026 Bxf6, and was trying to work out whether to retreat my queen to h3, g3, or f2, when suddenly Eric startled me by taking the other way. The verdict on 24. \u2026 Bxf6 25. Qh3 is unclear, even after looking at it on a computer. Rybka starts with a +0.8 pawn evaluation in favor of Black, but when you play through some lines you\u2019ll find some interesting tactics showing up and Black’s so-called advantage melting away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is where the sporting element of the game comes in, which I wrote about at the beginning. Black is probably objectively better, or at least equal. But he is the one who will be under pressure, forced to make difficult decisions. Meanwhile, White will be having fun, attacking the pawn on d5, playing g4, loosening up Black\u2019s kingside, maybe invading on the f-file or sacrificing an exchange on e7. We\u2019re playing the game that White wanted to play. Eric was obviously uncomfortable with this kind of position and from that point of view his blunder is much less surprising.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Earlier in the week Mike Splane gave me a \u201cscouting report\u201d\non Eric, in which he said that he has never seen Eric sacrifice material. That\ntells me something. A person who never sacrifices material is a person who is\nnot comfortable in a position with material imbalances, and he may not be as\ngood at defending a position where he\u2019s a pawn up but has a lot of things to\nworry about. I\u2019m not sure whether this psychological profile is accurate, but\nit sure worked out well here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 24. \u2026 Qxf6?? 25. Bg5 \u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Eric must have missed this move somehow. Now all of White\u2019s\npieces swing into position like clockwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 25. \u2026 Qe6 26. Nf4 Qe3+ 27. Kh1 Re8?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The computer points out that Black can try 27. \u2026 bc! 28. Nxd5 Qxg5! 29. Qxg5 cb. White has to be very careful. The d4 pawn is a goner, so it will soon be a piece and three pawns against a queen, and those pawns on c4 and b2 could turn into monsters. However, remember the scouting report. It would be unlikely for a person who never sacrifices to find a queen sacrifice like 28. \u2026 Qxg5!<\/p>\n\n\n\n 28. Nxd5 Qe6 29. Nf6+ Black resigns<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember the Mike Splane Question? I thought all along that Nf6+ was going to be my winning move, and I even got to play it twice in one game. Of course 29. \u2026 Bxf6 30. Bxf6 leads to instant mate. And if 29. \u2026 Kf8 I was going to play 30. Rde1! Qxe1 31. Nxd7+ Kg8 32. Rxe1, winning a whole queen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I predicted last week, this win makes the last round of\nthe tournament a whole lot more interesting. On board two, Paulo Santanna upset\nMike Splane, so we now have a three-way tie for first between Eric, Paulo, and\nme, each with a score of 5-1. The pairings I would expect for the last round would\nbe me against Paulo on board one, and Eric against the highest-rated player\nwith 4\u00bd points, who I think is Steven Svoboda. I suspect that Eric still has\nthe upper hand in tiebreaks, so I have to play for a win and hope that Eric\nloses or draws. If Eric loses, it\u2019s conceivable that I could win the tournament\neven with a draw against Paulo, but that would depend on the tiebreaks and I\ncertainly would not want to count on it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes chess is about logic and finding the right moves. Other times, chess is about the things that sports are about: coping with adversity, finding opportunities, and exerting your will. That was the kind of game I played last night in the sixth round of the Kolty Chess Club Championship. If you look at it […]<\/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":[37,1363,11,16,12],"tags":[4082,1346,1924,4429,426,3676,4390,1376,177,1151,2577,3626],"class_list":["post-6007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chess-clubs","category-current-news","category-games","category-positions","category-tournaments","tag-eric-steger","tag-grand-prix-sicilian","tag-kolty-chess-club","tag-long-think-wrong-think","tag-luck","tag-mike-splane-question","tag-paulo-santanna","tag-pawn-sacrifice","tag-psychology","tag-rybka","tag-speculative","tag-sweeper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6007","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=6007"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6007\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6012,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6007\/revisions\/6012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/danamackenzie.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/steger-2.jpg\")