COMBINATION SHOWCASE.....

Background information...
this is a game I played online (correspondence) and was willing to go into the grunfeld defence which my opponent skillfully sidestepped .

please note
- from move 20 the way black uses the dark squared bishop before capturing the trapped rook.
-black uses the passed pawn to force white into passive positions.
moral of the story:
sometimes in chess, one can be excused for delaying a capture if by doing so, one will create weaknesses in the enemy camp.

A Case For Borrowing Opening Ideas.

Occasionally one plays a chess game which causes immense pride and appreciation of all the hard preparatory work done.

I am a great fan of the evans and kings gambits but have never really had a chance to effect any ideas from the openings.

In this game however, ideas from the Evans gambit are “borrowed” and ruthlessly executed against a much higher rated opponent.

This game embodies some heavy gambit ideas:

• open lanes for the rooks

• open diagonals for the bishops

• limit the freedom of the opponents king

• attack with all the tools at ones disposal

• “force” the opponent to lose tempo by capturing your material

• sacrifice material to achieve the above five principles.

Looking at some critical moments of the game!!

on move 3:

The move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 .... sets up the Italian game and blacks response 3. ....h6 can be deemed a “tiny” blunder by black due to the possible loss of tempo in case white never needs the square g5 and instead seeks to blast the center wide open.

My question now was how can I make this count?After some hard thinking, I came to the conclusion that any long term plans will revolve around the freedom my dark squared bishop attains.

I will need to develop my dark squared bishop soon but to where??

I had two main ideas:

1. moving the b pawn and developing my bishop to a3. This would have to be real soon since I wanted this bishop to control f7 thus stop the king from castling . Giving the game an Evans gambit flavor.

2. castle king side followed by f4 eXf4 and finally developing the bishop to f4 giving the game a kings gambit flavor.

My choice of action would be decided by my opponents next moves. So I castled king side thus developing more pieces and waiting.

Soon enough black sought normal developing moves and finally Bc5 was played.

Position on move 5

Here my plan to blast the center open and attack blacks king in the center was put into action.

White sacrifices the b pawn in true gambit style with the move b4 and chases the black bishop and knight away with tempo.

On move 23:

From here on end, white chases and harasses the black king relentlessly until with white to move after 23 .....Kf5

Aquiet but deadly 24.c4 threatening Qh3++forces white to surrender the queen with 24.... QXR.

Like clockwork, from here on, the rest is history.

COMBINATION SHOWCASE

The French defence is one hell of an opening to play against and as an 1.e4 player, I come across it alot!!
I dont mind facing any of the sicilian family (forgive the cheap pun) or any member of the scandinavian or even any of the scotch. BUT the french is just plain annoying. In this game however, I had the chance to totally tame this rogue beast (the french not my good friend aka mr mxpl......)

After the opposite side castling, the ensuing pawn storms provide me a chance to play probably one of my best combinational attacks and the ensuing earth shattering queen sac leaves my opponent with no more counterplay!!
at this point it is checkmate!!

enjoy the game and feel free to comment.