Round 6: Slive-Mac Intyre 0-1

Mac Intyre takes advantage of several mistakes by Slive to comfortably win a tactical game with a number of interesting material imbalances. Paul provided the annotations below.

[Event "BCC Championship"]
[Site "Somerville, MA USA"]
[Date "2004.10.24"]
[Round "6"]
[White "Slive, Alex"]
[Black "Mac Intyre, Paul"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteUSCF "2039"]
[BlackUSCF "2303"]
[ECO "E94"]
[Opening "King’s Indian"]
[Variation "Classical"]
[Annotator "Mac Intyre"]

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 Bg7 4.Nc3 O-O 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 Nbd7 7.O-O e5 8.Bg5

[This is a very rare move and doesn't seem to really gain any advantage]

8…h6 9.Be3 c6

[This move is actually extremely clever. I think a classical approach to this position would be 9....Ng4 10.Bc1 f5, but after sitting and looking at that position, I didn't feel all that comfortable with it. Instead, I correctly predicted that my opponent's next move would be 10.h3, after which I planned to transpose to the exd4 systems. In these systems, White naturally wants to play f3 to bolster the e-pawn. However, having already played h3, the dark squares on the kingside would become uncomfortably weak]

10.h3 exd4 11.Nxd4 Re8 12.Qd2?! Nxe4 13.Nxe4 Rxe4 14.Bf3 Rh4!

[The correct plan. There is no clear way to take advantage of the offside position of this rook]

15.Nxc6 bxc6 16.Bxc6 Rb8 17.Qxd6 Be5 18.Qd5 Qc7 19.f4 Bg7

[Better was 19...Bxb2, but Black was playing conservatively and still holds a large advantage]

20.Rad1 Nf8 21.Qd8

21…Qxc6 22.Qxh4 Rxb2 23.Rf2 Rxf2 24.Qxf2 Qxc4 25.Bxa7

[This ‘equalish’-looking position is actually very favorable, and probably winning, for Black. The problem is that White will be forced to remain completely passive, while Black has quite a few ways to continue improving his position]

25…Ne6 26.f5? gxf5 27.Qxf5? Qa4!

[...and the rest is easy]

28.Rc1 Qxa7+ 29.Kh1 Bb7 30.Qb5 Qe3 31.Rf1 Qxh3+ 0-1