Morphized: Alekhine's tactical shot was pretty impressive indeed, but Chaje's terrible positional play made it much more simple: 4... g6?
 click for larger viewDestroying the dark squares... Every dark diagonal is weak, since there are two dark squares pieces (the f8 bishop and the queen) covering 4 diagonals. 8... a6??
 click for larger viewFrom this point, I'd say that the game is already positionally lost for several reasons: 1) Chajes gave up one of his two dark squares pieces, which is far from being enough to cover up everything. 2) After fxe5 axb6, the black knight on g8 will basically never manage to get into the play: h8 and f8 are under white's control, and Nge7 won't lead to anything, since c6, c8, g6, d5 and f5 are controlled by white. Moving the c8 bishop out with b6 and Bb7 with the idea of Ne7 and Nc8 doesn't seem to lead to anything either. 3) the new white pawn on e5 yields eternal control over the d6 square and prevents forever Chajes from playing d5. By the way, Stockfish gives <+2,26> on move 11 with material equality, which is usually the synonym of an opening disaster. I believe that black had to play f6 on move 11 in order to free his knight, instead of allowing this tactical destruction. Of course, the rest of the game was very entertaining, but the said can be said about the the Opera Game: black's early mistakes made a spectacular win quite easier! |