026. A Spectacular Queen Hunt

White: MarcShaw - thematic tournament, ChessWorld.net, 2014

Hunts in chess are always “spectacular”, aren't they. In this one the white queen rushes out early to h5, snaffles the rook on h8, is driven back by busy minor pieces and seeks shelter on the queenside, only to suffer the indignity of perpetual attack from a lowly bishop, forcing a draw.

Okay, this hunt is not really so spectacular. The initial queen sally is a known theoretical line, and her subsequent harassment forms the basis of Black's compensation for the sacrificed exchange. All the same, it's quite a nice sequence of events: Qd1-h5-h8-h7-h4-a4-a3-a6-a4-a6 and draws.

It also shows that, in the 3 Bc4 variation at least, The Latvian Gambit Lives!, even if Black's path to apparent safety remains quite narrow: 3...fxe4 4 Nxe5 d5! 5 Qh5+ g6 6 Nxg6 hxg6! and so on. Everything else (e.g. 3...d6?!, 4...Qg5?!, 6...Nf6?!) is just good for White.

Since the 3 Bc4 Latvian can – and in fact did – arise via the Calabrese Counter-Gambit, it's a good thing for the latter that this line of the former is acceptable for Black. Regarding which, the game below is theoretically interesting.



From the diagram, the game continued 11...Ne5 12 Nd2 exd3 13 0-0 Nf6 14 Qh4 Qd6, which I think represents best play for both sides.

Instead, GM Kosten – working in, if not exactly pre-computer days, then certainly weaker computer days – gave a few erroneous assessments which are perhaps worth noting:
a) “11...exd3! and Black is at least equal”. Here 12 0-0 is good for White; e.g. 12...dxc2 13 Bxc2 Nf8 14 Qh4 Qxh4 15 gxh4, MarcShaw-Reprimand, ChessWorld.net 2013.
b) “13 f4! looks right, followed by Nf3-g5”. This lands White in serious trouble after 13...Nf6 14 Qh4 Neg4 15 Nf3 Qd6 16 Ng5+ Ke7.
c) 13...Qf6!? 14 f4 Nc4 15 f5 gxf5 “unclear”, H.Hage-F.Van der Muysenberg, correspondence 1995. This should have been met by 16 Nf3! with advantage.

At the time I was a bit worried about 15 Qf4, but now Houdini shows that 15...g5! 16 Qxg5 Rh8 17 Re1 Rh5 is fine for Black. I love computers :)

020. Queen vs. Three Minor Pieces

Black: draco - thematic tournament, ChessWorld.net, 2016

Unusual material equivalences usually lead to interesting games. That is, where each sides’ "point count" is roughly the same but made up of different forces. Such as:

• Rook and pawn(s) vs. bishop and knight;
• Rook vs. minor piece and two pawns;
• Two bishops vs. two knights;
• Queen and pawn(s) vs. two rooks;
• Queen vs. three minor pieces.

And so forth. Which side comes out on top naturally depends on the position, but some generalizations can be made. Such as:

• For the rook to beat bishop and knight in an endgame requires the aid of an outside passed pawn;
• For two knights to beat two bishops, the pawn structure has to favour the knights;
• For the queen to beat two rooks or three minors, the queen needs to have some targets to attack.

The following game featured the last of those, with queen vs. bishop and two knights, and arrived on the board as early as move eight. I'd generally prefer to have the three pieces because they're more fun: three rooks (of the feathered variety) mobbing the big bird. This time I had the queen but in what seemed quite a favourable situation, since, two moves later, all my opponent's pieces were sitting on their original starting squares.



Nevertheless, there were no targets in his position and I was unable to create any as the game proceeded. In fact, in attempting to do so, I allowed my opponent to create some in mine, the main one turning out to be the king. By the time I'd finally achieved anything (connected passed pawns on the seventh), the three minor pieces (assisted by a pawn) had combined to give mate.

009. Patzer Sees a Check

White: stormytlc - thematic tournament, ChessWorld.net, 2011

Talking of articles, I once wrote an article on 1 e4 e5 2 Bc4 f5!? (the Calabrese Counter-Gambit) for a special issue of Tim Harding's magazine Chess Mail (May 1997). Nineteen years ago. Damn. My theoretical investigations have moved on quite a bit since then.

Jänisch's "refutation" 3 d3 Nf6 4 f4, which I indicated as still being the critical line, had in fact already been neutralized by Mark Lyell: 4...Nc6 5 Nf3 fxe4! (I concentrated on the inferior 5...exf4, utilizing some transpositional analysis from Matthias Wahls) 6 dxe4 Nxe4 7 fxe5 Nxe5! 8 Bd5 (or 8 Nxe5 Qh4+) 8...Nxf3+ 9 Qxf3 Nf6 and Black is fine, J.Emms-M.Lyell, British Championship, Southampton 1986.

In his later book on the Italian Game and Bishop's Opening, Beating 1 e4 e5 (Everyman 2010), John Emms suggested two other possibilities for White: 3 d4!? exd4 4 e5 d5 5 exd6 Bxd6 6 Ne2 Nc6 7 0-0 Na5 8 Bxg8 Rxg8 9 Nxd4 “with advantage, J.Pietrasanta-K.Shirazi, Pau 2008”; and the simple 3 d3 Nf6 4 Nf3.

The first, a sort of reversed Falkbeer, was missing from my article. I subsequently faced 4 e5 three times (1998-2001), though White always retreated the bishop in my games. After 5 exd6 etc, Shirazi's play might be improved by 7...Qh4!?, when something like 8 g3 Qf6 9 Nd2 Ne5! 10 Nxd4 Bd7 and ...0-0-0 is quite unclear.

The second line, 3 d3 Nf6 4 Nf3, can indeed be tricky if Black develops "normally". I gave (among other things) 4...fxe4 5 dxe4 Nxe4 6 Qd5 Nd6, following L.Bledow-P.von Bilguer, Berlin 1839, which looks extremely dodgy to me now, especially if White just plays 6 0-0!. Instead, Emms notes that 4...Nc6 5 0-0 Bc5 6 Nc3 d6 7 Bg5 “is a King's Gambit Declined with reversed colours, and 7...Na5 8 Bxf6! Qxf6 9 Nd5 Qd8 10 b4! Nxc4 11 bxc5 was somewhat better for White in D.Fryer-M.Lyell, Hastings 2003/04.” The problem is the combination of Bg5 and Nc3-d5 which the natural ...Bc5 does nothing to prevent. Trying to solve this led me to the patzer's variation 4...fxe4 5 dxe4 Bb4+!?.



White has four reasonable ways to block the check, all of which rule out the Bg5 and Nc3-d5 plan: (i) 6 Nc3 sees the knight pinned; (ii) 6 Nbd2 puts it on the wrong square; (iii) 6 Bd2 allows the bishop to be swapped off; (iv) 6 c3 Bc5 leaves the c3-square obstructed by a pawn. Almost all of my opponents have chosen option four, when White's position does look rather good. It will take at least four moves for Black to evacuate the king from the centre, while the c5-bishop is an obvious target for space-gaining advances on the queenside with b2-b4 and a2-a4-a5. Nevertheless, it turns out that it's not so easy for White to prove anything, while Black gets on with the slow plan of ...d7-d6, ...Qe7, ...Be6 and ...0-0. It's often possible (and better) to insert ...Nc6-d8 before ...Be6 as well.

The game below was one of my earliest with this set-up. As it happened, my opponent managed to keep me from castling short, but by that time it was okay to go long. Note that 18 Qxd6?? would lose for White after 18...Nb8, while 18 Na3 Rhe8 19 Qxd6 Qf4 20 Qd2 Nf6 21 Qxf4 exf4 is fine for Black. And also that no one has yet managed, in my 16 further games, to cast doubt on Black's position after 5...Bb4+. It may be possible to cast doubt on the whole idea of 2...f5, but that will have to wait for a future post.