Mar-25-06
 | | An Englishman: Good Evening: Immediately after this game ended, one of the other spectators told me, "I think 3.Nc3 has been refuted. Maybe even 1.e4." Of course this was an over-reaction, but it does convey the level of shock in the tournament hall. When a super-solid line like this gets spanked as badly as this, chessplayers tend to leap to rather far-fetched conclusions. The curious aspect of Seirawan's play in this, one of his best games, is how positionally sound his play is despite a shattered pawn formation. Black's smooshed up pawns in the center actually dominate the board and restrict the development of the Bc1. The Black Bishops' crossfire prevent White's other minors from finding good squares. You also need tactics, and Seirawan crashes through with a nice little shot: 25...b5! 26.Qxb5,Qxb5; 27.Bxb5,Rd1X. 26.Bxb5,Bd3+! wins a piece. 26.Bxf7,Rxg3; 27.fxg3,Bd3+; 28.Ke1,Qe4+ is a promising Exchange sac. If instead 27.Bxf4,Rg7 leaves 2 Bishops hanging. So White has to allow Black to win the two Bishops, and these two are about as nasty as Bishops have ever gotten. Add tripled majors on the d-file and the game doesn't last much longer. |
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| Mar-25-06 | | euripides: <Englishman> thanks for drawing attention to this very beautiful game. White's well-motivated lunge at the black king with 16 b5 hands Black a huge diagonal. I don't know whether White could have got Ba3 in at some stage. |
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Mar-25-06
 | | keypusher: I added this game to the cg.com database...one of my favorites from when I was first learning the game. Unfortunately it inspired me to an ill-fated love affair with this variation for Black. |
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Mar-26-06
| | An Englishman: Good Evening: <euripides> (my favorite Classical tragedian!) has a good idea, but the timing is key: after 19...Nd5; 20.Ba3 allows the immediate Knight invasion at f4. Perhaps 19.Ba3. PS--anyone here named Aristophanes? |
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Nov-09-12
 | | perfidious: <keypusher> In the 1980s, I played 5....gxf6 numerous times with success; what happened in your games? In the Harvard Futurity 1987, Louis A Mercuri played instead 13.Be3 0-0-0 14.Ng3 exd4 15.Qxd4 c5 16.Qg4 f5 17.Nxf5 Qe5 18.Nd4 Bh5 19.Qf5 cxd4 20.Qxe5 Nxe5 21.Bd4, reaching a position he believed favourable to White in home analysis, as he wrote in his annotations in Chess Horizons. In my opinion, this is not so clear. |
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Nov-09-12
| | keypusher: <perfidious> You are a much stronger chess player than I am! I don't remember the games very well, but simply Nf3 and g3 gave me a lot of trouble, as well as the line in this game. I am pretty dull; inflicting pawn weaknesses on myself in exchange for open lines is just not a good approach for me. |
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| Mar-20-18 | | Ibisha Biscotto: [•w•] WOW. i felt for white's poor g2 square early on. what a fun battle! |
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| Mar-21-18 | | andrewjsacks: 25...b5 quite excellent. |
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| Oct-21-22 | | boz: Must be very satisfying to win this way with Black. |
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Oct-21-22
 | | bckm: haven't analyzed the game, but Jack was my teacher for several years, and I can confidently say that his love for the game wears off on you (even if he didn't make me a GM)... :) |
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Oct-21-22
 | | HeMateMe: Terrific game from Yaz! Didn't Peters have a long running chess column in the LA Times? I was going to say LA Tribune, but that was the Lou Grant newspaper. |
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Oct-21-22
 | | FSR: I played this line only once as Black, against Marvin Dandridge. He played Ne2-g3-h5-g7+. I responded with ...Kd8 and then ...Kc7. Not what one anticipates when playing 1...c6, but my king was happy enough and we ended up agreeing to a draw. He found and gave the game to me a few years back. I'll have to find it and upload it. |
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| Oct-21-22 | | goodevans: Maybe White should be playing towards O-O at some point before launching an all out Q-side advance. Perhaps the half-open g- and h-files and the fact that his own h-pawn had gone marching up the board dissuaded him from this. Once the Q-side assault "Peters" out it's Yasser that's left holding all the tactical cards. 24...Bxf2+ and 24...Nxc3 would both have been temping possibilities. In fact it seems that from then on in he had to choose each move between several winning alternatives. |
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| Oct-21-22 | | YoungEd: <HeMateMe>: Yes, Peters wrote the (very good) Sunday LA Times chess column for quite a few years. Bill Cornwall took over when Peters stopped, and after Cornwall retired the paper just started running a second sudoku instead. Sigh... |
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Kibitzing
