The Seesaw Sea Snake

UmarXudayberdiyev (Uzbekistan) - Hennie Schaper

King's Indian Defence

1. c4 Nf6 2. d4 d6 3. h3 g6 4. e3 Bg7 5. Bd3 0-0 6. g4 e5 7. Nf3

White has played an unorthodox but fairly aggressive attack against the King's Indian. This move is marked as a mistake though in the post-game analysis. I did see the fork option with e4, but did not think black would come out better after g5. The computer disagrees, giving the line 8. ... exd3 9. gxf6 Qxf6 10. Nc3 Re8 11. e4 Nc6 as clearly better for black.

7. ... exd4 8. Nxd4 Re8 9. Ne2 Nc6 10. Bd2

Time for a blunder. Tempting but wrong to play Nxg4 with a small material gain (rook and two pawns for bishop and knight), but leaving white with far more play than necessary. Instead d5 would give black a very nice game.

10. ... Nxg4 11. hxg4 Bxb2 12. Nbc3 Nxa1 13. Qxa1 Ne5 14. Be4 Bxg4 15. Nf4

Time for another blunder. I should have consolidated with c6. Instead I forced white to give up the bishops pair, but the black knight is more useful than the white bishop in this position. The computer rates the position after my next move is roughly equal.

15. ... Nf3+ 16. Bxf3 Bxf3 17. Rh2 Qf6 18. Nfe2 Bxe2 19. Kxe2 Re7

Blunder number three. I did realize that this puts Nd5 as a killing option in the position, but disregarded it because at the moment the knight is pinned because of the unprotected queen on a1. What I did not see is how easy white can unpin with a threat.

20. Qh1 h5 21. Nd5 

Now, after the most sensible move Qe6 white takes the rook and has about equal material with bishop versus three pawns, but all the play. I decided to mix things up - and white got greedy. 

21. ... Qg5 22. e4 Qg4+ 23. f3 Rxe4+ 24. Be3 (the simple Kd1 wins) Rxe3+ 25. Nxe3 Qe6 26. Qg1 Re8

The gamble paid off - black has four pawns for the knight, a good pawn structure and active play.

27. Kd2 Kf8 (better would have been Qe5) 28. Re2 (better: Nd5) Qf6 29. Qb1 Qd4+ 30. Qd3

Time for blunder number four. Black needs to keep the queens on the board to better utilize the army of pawns. Qf4 and keeping on advancing the h-pawn is probably winning for black.

30. ... Qxd3 31. Kxd3 c6 32. Rb2 b6 33. a4 Kg7 34. Ra2 Re5 35. f4 Re7 36. a5 Kf6 37. abx6 axb6 38. Nc2

Blunder number five, and even worse, this is really a missed win. With Kf5 followed by Kxf4 (after e.g. Nd4+) white is losing. I did not see it. In the coming moves black cannot hold on to his extra pawns.

38. ... h4 39. Nd4 Rc7 40. Rh2 g5 41. fxg5+ Kxg5 42. Nf3+ Kg4 43. Nxh4 f5 44. Ng6 b5 45. Rc2 bxc4+ 46. Rxc4+ Kg5 47. Nf5 Rc8 48. Ne6+ Kf6 49. Nd4 d5 50. Rc5 f4 51. Nxc6+ Rc7 52. Kd4 Kg5 53. Rxd5+ Kg4 54. Ne5+ Kg3 55. Ke4 Ra7 56. Rd3+ Kf2 57. Kxf4

This is a drawn end game provided black plays it right (keep the king from the rims, and do not fall for knight forks or rook skewers). However, I had less than 5 minutes left and white had 11 minutes. I can't blame him for trying. I will not list the rest of the moves - white continued to probe, black did not blunder again, and on move 81 white actually lost the knight by carelessness. However, at that point white still had six minutes on the clock and I was down to two and a half. Probably the KR versus KR end game would be considered as a win for white when time runs out for black (black can be stupid and lose this), so white kept playing - but I did not blunder any more. At move 105 (in Dutch a chess game of over 100 moves is called a zeeslang, or sea serpent) I could claim a draw for three times the same position (with almost 2 minutes left). 1/2 - 1/2

In the end, given all my blunders I was happy with the draw against a higher rated opponent. I was particularly glad that I played the end games KRN-KR and KR-KR well at top speed.