Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff

Fabiano Caruana – Alexander Vasilyevich Onischuk
60th U.S. Chess Championship; Saint Louis, April 20, 2016
Spanish Game C78

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Bc5 6. c3 b5 7. Bc2 d5 8. a4 dxe4 9. axb5 Bg4 10. bxc6! A very valuable theoretical novelty (as far as we know) instead of 10. Bxe4 Nxe4 11. bxc6 0-0 as in Anand – Shirov, World Chess Championship Knockout Tournament, Tehran 2000, match game 2. 10. ... exf3 11. gxf3 Be6 12. Ra5! Qd6 13. f4 e4 14. d4 exd3 15. Qxd3 0-0 16. Qxd6 Bxd6 17. Rd1 Bg4 18. Rd4 Bf3 19. Ba4 Rfe8 20. Be3 Ne4 21. Bd1! Fabi seems to have understood everything about the variation, almost so much that it is hard to understand where and when Black went wrong! 21. ... Bxd1 22. Rxd1 Rab8. If 22. ... Re6 then 23. f5 Re5 24. Rxe5 Bxe5 25. Na3 and White stands much better. The text, however, is even worse. 23. Nd2! Rxb2. As often happens on the board, doing bad for bad gets more bad. 24. Nxe4 Rxe4

25. Re5!! A delightful killer move! The Bishop cannot take the Rook because of the mate on the eighth rank. 25. ... Rxe3. On 25. ... f5 26. Rxd6! wins brutally. If, instead, 25. ... Rxe5 then 26. fxe5 Be7 27. Rd7 Kf8 28. Ba7! (preventing ... Rb2-b8) and the c-Pawn will soon be unstoppable. 26. fxe3 Rb8 27. Ra5 Kf8 28. c4 1 : 0. Such a gem! “Luckily all my games with White have been pretty spiffing!”, finally Caruana said.

Caruana vs. Onischuk. Photo: U.S. Chess Federation (@USChess).