Even in Chaos

Antoaneta Stefanova – Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu

4th FiNet Chess960 Open; time control: 20 minutes plus 5 seconds per move; Mainz, August 12, 2005

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Position #435

1. e4 g6 2. Ne3 d6 3. f4 c5. 3. ... b5!? 4. d3 f5!? appears a better way to harmonise and balance forces.
4. b3 Bxa1 5. Rxa1 b5 6. d3 0-0?! The decision to castle is quite questionable, as now the Black King can quite easily become a target for attack. 6. ... e6 7. g4!? Qe7 might have been considered here.

The game was annotated by Gene Milener in his book “Play Stronger Chess by Examining Chess960: Usable Strategies of Fischer Random Chess Discovered”, Castle Long Publications, 2006, pp. 242-244, and probably he didn’t need a crystal ball to guess that “White’s next ten plies all move force toward the ‘h’ wing for a possible attack on Black’s King”.
7. f5 (7. g4!?↑)
7. ... Nb6 8. Qh4 Nc6. Black could also play 8. ... f6!? so as to reply to 9. g4 with 9. ... g5 defending well.
9. 0-0. Trading places, but... what is better for the King is not necessarily better for the Rook.
9. ... Ne5 10. Ne2 Nbd7 11. Nf4 Kh8 12. Qh6 Rg8 13. fxg6 Nxg6 14. Nf5 Nde5 15. Nh5 g6 16. Rae1 Qd7

“White has threatened Black’s King, but now her attack begins to weaken”, writes Milener.
17. c3 Rbf8. If 17. ... Nxd3 then 18. Re3↑ eventually followed by Re3-h3. But 17. ... b4!? came into consideration.
18. d4 cxd4 19. cxd4 Ng4 20. Qd2 e6 21. Nfg3 f5 22. exf5 exf5 23. h3 Nf6 24. Nxf6 Rxf6 25. d5 Ne5 26. Nh5 Rfg6 27. Qd4 h6?? A fatal blunder, losing immediately. Milener suggested that “Play might have gone 27. ... Re8 28. Re3 Rg5 29. Nf4 Qg7 30. Rd1 Kg8 31. a3 h6 with positions held”.

28. Rxe5! 1 : 0. Because, after 28. ... dxe5 29. Qxe5+ Kh7 30. Rxf5 Black is hopeless.