Trying too hard

And so into the finishing stretch of the Major Open. In this, the seventh round, I had white against a junior, Ethan Li (1987). If I had won this game then I could still have made a success of the week; indeed my opponent achieved exactly this by winning his final three games. That made the opening choice quite easy, for I chose to wield the prep hammer and venture into the Open Sicilian, something I am quite cautious about nowadays from the white side.

The first part of the plan went just fine, and I emerged from the opening with a healthy advantage. But a combination of bad calculation and worse nerves ultimately proved my nemesis:

[Event "Major Open"] [Site "?"] [Date "2022.08.19"] [Round "7.20"] [White "Young, Daniel J"] [Black "Li, Ethan"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "B48"] [WhiteElo "2020"] [BlackElo "1987"] [Annotator "Young,Daniel J"] [PlyCount "86"] [EventDate "2022.??.??"] 1. e4 {(1:30)} c5 {(1:30)} 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 {I rarely go into an Open Sicilian against 2... Nc6 (I have nothing against the Sveshnikov and don't know the Classical as well as I should) but I had seen that Li goes into a Taimanov via an odd move order, and I didn't object to that.} cxd4 4. Nxd4 Qc7 5. Nc3 e6 6. Be3 a6 7. Qf3 {The modern battleground - I had looked at this sytem quite carefully a few years ago and judged it promising for White. What Li would do from here was anyone's guess, but I was able to remember my old analysis and get a good position from the opening.} Bd6 {Aiming for mass simplification, which is not sufficient to solve his problems in my view.} 8. O-O-O Be5 9. Qe2 {This amounts to a transposition into the more common 9. g3. Shaw makes a good case for 9. Nxc6 instead, but all three moves score very well for White.} Nge7 10. g3 {(1:22)} b5 {(57)} 11. f4 Bxd4 12. Bxd4 Nxd4 13. Rxd4 Bb7 14. Bg2 O-O 15. Rhd1 $14 {(1:14) White has been able to gain space with tempo on the kingside, and Black's backward d-pawn restricts his queenside counterplay.} Bc6 {(42)} 16. Qd2 $6 (16. e5 $142 {I didn't want to concede the f5 square, but opening the long diagonal allows White to intensify the pressure against d7.} Nf5 17. R4d3 Rad8 18. Ne4 b4 19. Nd6 Nxd6 20. Bxc6 Nc4 {White can certainly retreat the bishop with an enduring edge, but there doesn't seem to be a refutation of the bold-looking} 21. Bxd7 Nb6 22. Qd2 $14) 16... f6 $2 {A tactical oversight which, however, I was unable to exploit.} 17. h4 $2 { The direct attack is too slow to seriously threaten Black.} (17. Nd5 $142 $1 { I definitely looked at this (it's an Open Sicilian!) but I thought it didn't work because of} exd5 18. exd5 Nf5 19. dxc6 Nxd4 {, missing the powerful intermezzo} 20. cxd7 $1 {with a discovered attack on a8. Now after} Rad8 (20... Qxd7 {is marginally preferred by the engine, though} 21. Bxa8 Rd8 $18 {leaves White with a prosaic ending a pawn to the good}) 21. Qxd4 $18 {Black is totally paralysed by the d-pawn, and in any case it's not clear that the bishop is inferior to the enemy rooks.}) 17... Rab8 18. h5 b4 19. Ne2 (19. Nd5 $143 $2 {I spent a while on the knight leap once again, but this time I analysed correctly and rejected it.} exd5 20. exd5 Nf5 {With the queen's rook off the long diagonal, now this really does kill White's fun.} 21. Rc4 (21. dxc6 Nxd4 22. cxd7 Qxd7 $17 {leaves White with insufficient compensation for the exchange, as there are too many open lines for the rooks now that the menace of the d-pawn is gone.}) 21... Nd6 22. dxc6 Nxc4 23. Bd5+ Kh8 24. Bxc4 dxc6 $19 {I was not wrong in thinking that White has nothing for the exchange.} ) 19... a5 20. h6 {(36)} g6 $6 {(21) The computer wants to take on h6, or defend the seventh rank with ...Rf7, rather than let my h-pawn take lodgings.} 21. Kb1 $14 d5 $2 {This took me by surprise, as I thought it had to be impossible - it's certainly impudent! The psychological value of this move is the only way I can explain my reaction.} 22. exd5 $6 (22. Bh3 $142 {I saw this move, but greatly underestimated its strength - perhaps subconsciously I took Black at his word regarding the soundness of his 21st move.} Bd7 (22... Qd6 { I couldn't see how to proceed from here, but} 23. exd5 Nxd5 24. c4 $1 {is the clincher that I missed.} bxc3 25. Nxc3 $18 {The threat is 26. Bxe6+ winning a pawn, and there's precious little Black can do about it.}) (22... f5 {looks as ugly as sin for Black, and I think} 23. exf5 Nxf5 24. Rd3 $18 {can safely be discarded without further analysis - Black's central pawns are condemned to remain as static weaknesses.}) (22... Kf7 $2 23. Bxe6+ $1 Kxe6 24. exd5+ Bxd5 25. Rxd5 Nxd5 26. Qxd5+ Ke7 27. Nd4 $18 {strands Black's king in the centre.}) 23. Rd3 {23. exd5 is also very good, but this emphasises that Black has almost immobilised himself by prematurely breaking in the centre.} Kh8 24. exd5 Nxd5 25. c4 {As in the 22... Qd6 variation, this demolishes Black's fragile defence along the d-file. The point of 23. Rd3 was to cover c3 in the event of the en passant capture.} Qxc4 26. Rxd5 exd5 27. Bxd7 $18) 22... Bxd5 23. Bxd5 Nxd5 $16 {It was only here that I realised 24... Nc3+ was in the air, but that should be no excuse for the following meltdown. White does not need to panic!} 24. Rxd5 $4 {I certainly tried hard in this tournament, but in the end perhaps a little bit too hard - White has no justification for forcing events like this, save for the aforementioned panic and also maybe frustration at having seemingly let Black break his bonds. White gets two pawns and one check (!) for the exchange, but in an open position like this my knight is hopelessly outclassed by a rook, and with a cooler head this is by no means beyond my understanding.} (24. Qd3 $142 {Black has no active plan and has to nurture the backward e-pawn for a long time. The supposed threat of} Nc3+ $4 {does not materialise once White's queen has moved to a safer square:} 25. bxc3 bxc3+ 26. Ka1) 24... exd5 25. Qxd5+ {(20)} Qf7 {(19)} (25... Kh8 $144 26. Nd4 {was what I was pinning my hopes on, but this too is wishful thinking as} Rfd8 $19 { stops me reaching e6.}) 26. Qxa5 Ra8 27. Qd5 {Gloomily deciding I had no choice but to allow the trade of queens. By now I was under no illusions as to the evaluation of the position. Which brings me back to the lack of objectivity mentioned in previous rounds...} (27. Qxb4 $144 {leads to the dissolution of my queenside following} Qxa2+ 28. Kc1 Rfb8 29. Qc3 Qa1+ 30. Kd2 Qxb2 $19) 27... Qxd5 28. Rxd5 Rad8 29. Rxd8 Rxd8 {The rest is very one-sided.} 30. Kc1 {(12)} Kf7 {(19)} 31. b3 Ke6 32. Kb2 Kf5 33. Nc1 Kg4 34. Nd3 Kxg3 35. Nxb4 {(12)} Kxf4 {(10)} 36. c4 g5 37. c5 g4 38. c6 g3 39. c7 Rc8 40. Nd5+ {(10) } Kf3 {(6)} 41. b4 g2 42. b5 g1=Q 43. b6 Qd4+ 0-1

It's a curious point, occurring to me only as I type these lines, that my most successful preparation in this tournament was for the three games I lost. And although I scored +1 -2 with 1. e4, a move I was to swear off of for a while afterwards, I stood better out of the opening in all three of those games. Sometimes it's difficult to find the balance between what you think is objectively most testing and what you can play well.

As for the game itself, there were some noteworthy flashpoints. My failure to play 17. Nd5! was disappointing, as I understood it should be the right move but couldn't find 20. cxd7! to justify that belief and therefore had to reject it. For all the talk of adapting openings to accommodate this shortcoming, I've never doubted that learning to calculate well enough to spot these resources is the fullest and best solution - but also the most difficult.

Nevertheless, it was not this but 24. Rxd5?? that lost me the game, and the doomed exchange sacrifice was a failure of psychology rather than chess ability. It's not hard to see that the ending with two pawns against the exchange is hopeless for White, but I was too easily shaken by Black suddenly generating a threat, and perhaps also mentally exhausted from having felt for the last few days that only winning every remaining game could make the final outcome a respectable one. Playing with an eye to the result rarely ends well for exactly the reason demonstrated in this game - it compromises objectivity and drives you to force events without any justification.

This was the end of any lingering hope of sneaking into the Championship qualification places, but there were still two games to play and I had after all given up two weeks' annual leave and the cost of a holiday to be there, so I wanted to make the most of them. The following afternoon I was at least given a small present for my perseverence.