My d4 and Colle/C-Z games

[TheaN]

As promised David, here's the game I played Thursday. This is no Colle, but still interesting to investigate where White went wrong. I'll add a few comments (but no analysis by computers or whatsoever) to some moves myself. Just to explain the header: Botwinnik is my chessclub: Botwinnik, named after Michael Botvinnik obviously. The round is the cycle, we play four, and the round, which is usually eight. So this was my second game of the season, and I started kinda bad. Nancy is nonetheless quite a constant player, and she ripped me of all my chances after 26.Kh3? Elo, as stated below, is the official KNSB (Koninklijke Nederlandse Schaakbond (Dutch Chess federation)) rating, the equivalent, I believe to the FIDE standard. I have more clubrating, even ~200 more (1787 <> 1608), but that doesn't really state anything.

[Event "Botwinnik Intern 08/09"]
[Site "Zoetermeer, NED"]
[Date "2008.09.11"]
[Round "1.2"]
[White "Middelkoop, Arno"]
[Black "Kirana, Nancy"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1663"]
[BlackElo "1714"]

1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Bf5 unaware, at this point in time, of the Colle theory after this early deviation, I played a QG.

3. c4 e6 4. Nc3 Bb4 5. Qb3?! premature, probably. She´s just wrongly placed, with Nc6 guarding Bb4.

5....Nc6 6. cxd5 exd5 7. Bd2 Bxc3? pointless Bishop surrender was my initial verdict. Normally I´d use something like this, but it didn't happen.

8. Bxc3? major decision by White, but seeing the placement of the Bishop later, both bxc3 and Qxc3 seem better.

8....Rb8 nonetheless, I seem to be better in this position.

9. g3? wrong time, wrong action. Bf1 was pointless on g2. 9.e3 seems better. Especially if 8.Qxc3, White's Bishop has all the space on the queenside.

9....Nf6 10. Bg2 Be4 11. O-O O-O 12. Rfd1 Qd7 13. Ne5?! no no no, fruitless. Nice idea, Nxe5 seems worse to Black, but it just seems to lose a pawn forced.

13....Qf5! 14. Rac1 Bxg2 15. Kxg2 Qe4+ 16. Kg1 Qxe2?! but I was not yet convinced about the strength of this pawn. Is it healthy enough? You tell me .

17. Re1 Qh5 18. f3?! hrmm, another move that seems to make things harder for White. I wanted to avoid Ne4 and Ng4, but it weakens e3 as I see later.

18....Rfe8 19. Re3 Qh6?! 20. Rce1 g6!? guarding back rank mate threats, and Black's Qh6 seems to only increase that potential, so I think g6 is a good defensive move.

21. Nxc6!? ! good, or bad? White tops after 21....Rxe3 22.Nxb8!, but the continuation shows a rather difficult time for White. Nonetheless, Nc6 was blocking the removal of Bc3, and thus punishing the wrong move 8.Bxc3 earlier, and now it can move.

21....bxc6 22. Rxe8+ it was only until after the game that both my opponent, my brother and myself were surprised by the strength of 22.Bd2!!, but after 22....Qxe3†! (Rxb3? 23.Rxe8† Nxe8 24.Bxh6 +-) 23.Rxe3 Rxb3! 24.Rxb3 it only activated White's Bishop. Maybe it's enough for the draw.

22....Rxe8 23. Rxe8+ Nxe8 24. Qb8 prior to playing 21.Nxc6 I thought this was crushing, but doesn't seem to be. Probably still the best move, though.

24....Qe3+ completely missed it: 24....Kf8? 25.Bb4† +-, or 24....Qf8? 25.Bb4, just as easy ^^.

25. Kg2 Qe2+ 26. Kh3?? blunder... could never recover completely from the kingside cage. Well finished, nonetheless. After 26.Kg1, it's either drawn, or extremely complex, as the Knight is still pinned, and the Bishop can become active. Unclear.

26....Qf1+! 27. Kh4 Qe2!? 28. Kh3 Qc8 might have saved White from immediate disaster. Kh3 loses a pawn also, so why not with reinforcements?

28....Kg7! 29. Qd8 Qf1+ 30. Kh4 Qxf3!! it's over now. Saw this prior to playing 28.Kh3, so I should have played 28.Qc8.

31. Qg5 Nd6 32. Qe5+? what else? If White has to continue to defend against the Black Majesty, Black wins easier.

32....Qf6+ 33. Qxf6+ Kxf6 34. Kg4?! Nb5! the Knight is much better, but I can't afford the loss of the Bishop entering a completely lost pawn endgame.

35. Ba5 h5+! White is being ripped off of everything he thought he could still use.

36. Kf4? executing a pin completely wrong, but it's lost anyway: going back only leads to a painful struggle.

36....Nxd4! 37. Bc3? c5 38. b4?! Ke6 of course. Started to think completely wrong once I was lost: 39.bxc5? Ne2† 0-1.

39. Bb2 Nc6 40. bxc5 Nb4! even the gain of a pawn is being taken away by threatening both 40....Nxa2 and Nd3†.

41. Ke3 Nxa2 42. Kd4 Nb4 43. Kc3 Nc6 44. Kb3 Ne5 d4 might have been more effective, paralyzing White... after 45.Kd4 Kf5, the Black King is going to march d4 down. 44....Ne5 positions the Knight better though.

45. Ka4 Nf3 46. Kb5 d4! a simple solution to a useless counterattack. 46....Nxh2?? 47.Kc6! Nf3 48.Kxc7 d4! 49.Kb7 Ne5 50.Bxd4 Nc5 51.Kxa7 +/= would've been a terrible blunder after such a game.

47. Kc4 I have to go back....

47....c6 0-1 ....but the door slams in by back as I return to the Black execution square.

I've added the PGN as .txt; I don't know if you don't want them that pgns are blocked, but just so that you can add it to your pgnviewer without my non-analysed comments ^^.

Hope you like it and my comments (whether useful or not).

Greetings, Arno.

[Rudel]

Thanks, Arno, I think this counts as a "Colle-Zukertort" game for our purposes, since it fits into the C-Z repertoire [you shouldn't really try to play a C-Z after Black has played 2...Bf5 anyway.

And I don't think the way you handled the opening was bad. In fact, it looks like you managed to transpose to the line in section 4.2 of chapter 6 [page 119], where I suggest puttng the question to the Bishop immediately rather than break the pin with Bd2.

I'll try to get back to this game later and I'll also put it in our database.

Thanks!
-David

[Rudel]

This game is no posted here. Thanks again for posting it!

[TheaN]

More games coming in the near future (read a day or five). I still have all my d4 games of the last club cycle to put up: one normal QG against a KID which I won, a normal Dutch which I drew and an early Bishop deviation that was over really quick in my advantage. Although I have been playing badly both in Blitz and in real games the last three games I have had quite a good start of the season. To be continued.