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ANNOTATED GAME
2008 Free Missouri Class Championships
Holmes, Dan (1618) vs. Dutiel, Tony (1889)
Annotated by: kansasjayhawk (1666)
Chess opening: QGD (D09), Albin counter-gambit, 5.g3
Holmes, Dan (1618) vs. Dutiel, Tony (1889)
Annotated by: kansasjayhawk (1666)
Chess opening: QGD (D09), Albin counter-gambit, 5.g3
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The time limit for this game was game in 1 hour and 55 minutes with 5 second time delay. I showed up a few minutes late to find that five minutes had already run off of my clock. | |||||
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1. d4 |
I had played this opponent many times and know that he is a very tactical player, so I opened with d4. | ||||
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1... d5 2. c4 e5 |
The previous day, out of pure curiosity, I had asked my opponent if he had ever played the Albin Counter-Gambit, knowing that he loves gambits, and he replied that he had. I had actually studied it recently, unfortunately, I didn't remember much beyond White's first five moves. | ||||
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3. dxe5 d4 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. g3 |
This was as far as I was comfortable; after this, I started spending a lot of time on my moves. | ||||
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5... Bf5 6. a3 |
Bg2 is more common here, and probably is a better move, but I did not feel comfortable with 6.Bg2 Nb4 7.Na3 d3!?, which IM Andrew Martin admits is unclear. | ||||
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6... Nge7 7. Bg5 |
Bg2 may still have been more to the point. This moves seems to help Black develop more than White. | ||||
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7... h6 |
Practically forcing me to give up the bishop pair. | ||||
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8. Bxe7 Bxe7 9. Bg2 d3 |
As expected. If I take the pawn, castling will be very difficult to me, and my king will be stuck in the center against an attack specialist with the bishop pair. | ||||
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10. e3 |
I decided I would try to pressure Black's d-pawn and prove that it had overextended itself. | ||||
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10... O-O 11. O-O f6 |
While this move is often thematic in the Albin, here the weakening of the a2-g8 diagonal seems to lose a lot of time and allow White to recapture the initiative. Black tends to play this before he has castled, the next few moves show why. | ||||
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12. Nh4 Bh7 13. Bd5+ Kh8 |
At this point, I had 1 hour and 24 minutes remaining, and my opponent still had 1 hour and 50 minutes left. | ||||
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14. e6 |
Now I also have a pawn on the 6th rank! Although I knew that this pawn would be weak, I felt more comfortable with this move given that I was already a pawn up, and I knew it would disrupt Black's development. Often, a pawn on the sixth rank can have an effect on the opponent's position similar to dividing his position in two, and that was one of my major goals here. | ||||
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14... Ne5 15. Nf3 c6 |
Unfortunately, I cannot keep my strong bishop on d5, which had protected the e6 pawn and limited the scope of the Black queen on the d-file. | ||||
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16. Nxe5 fxe5 17. Bg2 |
I realized that Black would then play e4 to make the d3 pawn a connected passed pawn, which forced me to change my plan - I would now attack the e4 pawn, hoping that once it left the board, the d3 pawn would be fatally weakened. | ||||
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17... e4 18. Nc3 |
The pawn cannot be maintained. | ||||
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18... Bf6 19. Nxe4 Bxb2 20. Rb1 Bxa3 21. Rxb7 Re8 |
So the smoke has cleared. I have a rook on the powerful 7th rank, I still have an extra pawn, but the pawn on e6 is going to fall at any moment, and Black has an outside passed pawn that could prove very difficult to stop, especially in an endgame where the rook on a8 protects it. I thought for awhile here, and decided that my top priority needed to be stopping the d3 pawn. | ||||
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22. Qa4 |
Accordingly, I cleared the d1 square for the rook, hoping to do so with tempo in the event the attacked bishop move. This didn't end up happening because of Black's next move. | ||||
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22... Rxe6 23. Qxa3 Bxe4 |
I was okay with this, because Black's bishop had been supporting the d3 pawn. At this point, I had 59 minutes remaining, and Black still had 1 hour and 40 minutes. | ||||
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24. Bxe4 Rxe4 25. Qc3 |
This mating threat forces Black to move either his rook or queen into a defensive position to defend g7. At this point, I could tell that my opponent was getting frustrated with his position. | ||||
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25... Re7 26. Rxe7 Qxe7 27. Qxd3 |
One passed pawn down, another still to go. | ||||
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27... Rd8 28. Qb3 Qc5 29. Kg2 Rd2 |
Grabbing the pawn gave Black a lot of counterplay. I was starting to get nervous here. Although I was up a pawn, Black had an outside passed pawn that I wasn't sure how to stop, and his pieces were very aggressively placed, aiming straight at my king. | ||||
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