Position after 13…Qg5
This was the game between GM Timman and GM Jones in the last round of Howard Staunton Memorial. Timman gave up his Queen with 14.Qxf4 and lost badly. What is the only move by White to have a chance for survival?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
For those of you who are interested, this is the actual game:
[Event “5th Staunton Mem”]
[Site “London ENG”]
[Date “2007.08.18”]
[Round “11”]
[White “Timman, J.”]
[Black “Jones, G.”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “E94”]
[WhiteElo “2560”]
[BlackElo “2526”]
[PlyCount “76”]
[EventDate “2007.08.07”]
1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 e5 7. O-O exd4 8. Nxd4 Re8 9. f3 Nc6 10. Be3 Nh5 11. Qd2 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 Nf4 13. Bxg7 Qg5 14. Qxf4 Qxf4 15. Bd4 c6 16. Rad1 b6 17. Bf2 Re6 18. Bg3 Qe3+ 19. Kh1 Qc5 20. a3 Ba6 21. Bf4
d5 22. b4 Qe7 23. b5 dxc4 24. bxa6 Qxa3 25. Bd2 b5 26. Ra1 Qc5 27. Bf4 Rd8 28.g4 g5 29. Bg3 Rd2 30. Be1 Rc2 31. Bd1 Rb2 32. Be2 Qe5 33. Rc1 Rh6 34. Rf2 b435. Rg2 Rh3 36. Kg1 bxc3 37. Bxc3 Qc5+ 38. Kf1 Rb3 0-1
Kf2 is the move I think? After Qxg2+ white will also lose the h-pawn. That’s better than giving up a whole queen.
Also Nh3+ can be met with Ke1, with white defending his queen.
Kf2 loses the pawn and bishop and gives black an opportunity to remove the queens from the board. It is less ugly than losing the queen but still bad
How about g3?
1.g3? Nh3+ winning the white queen!
Why not g3 or g4?
The dual threats are Qxg2++ and Nh3+ with discovered check followed by QxQ.
The only move, other than the played QxN which lost, which can both avoid mate and protect the queen would be — as ioannis pointed out:
14 Kf2
As after Nh3+ or Qxg2+ the king can retreat to e1, both avoiding mate and protecting the white queen. Play could then go:
14 Kf2 Qxg2+
15 Ke1 NxB
16 Bd4 and white has survived with a good position; or
14 Kf2 KxB
15 Qd4+ Kg8
16 g3 or g4 and white has survived again with a good position.
Interestingly, in the posted game, white played:
14 Qxf4 Qxf4
15 Bd4
But maybe attacking the queen with tempo and then going for a king-and-rook fork would be better:
14 (Qxf4) (Qxf4)
15 Nd5 Qd2
16 Nf6+ KxB
17 NxR+ Kf8
18 Nxc7 Rb8
19 Rfe1 Qxb2 and after everything that can be snatched on both sides has been snatched, white has a rook and knight for the queen, but black looks better. Both the 14 Kf2 variations I looked at look better than this, so I’d say that Kf2 is the best try to save the game
It took me forever to find it but Kf2 is the move. I have no idea why such a move is so counterintuitive. In fact I see no clear advantage for Black. He can play Qh4 forcing a repetition of moves with 2 Kg1 Qg5. Black can go for 2…Qg2 3Ke1 Ne2 4Qe2 Qe2 5Ke2 Kg7 but then 6 Nd5 looks strong for White (and perhaps 4Bd4!? is an even stronger). Maybe just Kxg7 after Kf2 but possibly g4 in response is fine for White.
-Justin Daniel
Justin Daniel wrote:
“It took me forever to find it but Kf2 is the move. I have no idea why such a move is so counterintuitive. “
That’s always an interesting and important question in and of itself. If we can figure out how to tune our intuitions so that such moves jump out at us instead of being counterintuitive, we’ll find them faster and more easily and more often in real game situations.
In this case, rather than a misdirecting headline (such as “to which square should the queen retreat” when the right move is to move another piece instead), Susan gave a big hint “Sometimes it’s better to make ugly moves”, and Kf2 is about as ugly as it gets. That tag line led me to look at the move.
Kf2 is counterintuitive because it ignores the threat of the queen invading the heart of black’s castled position and gives up the g-pawn for free. And on top of that, it still allows for a discovered attack on white’s queen with check. Finally, it involves wasting time to un-castle and walk the castled king back to its original square in the center. Yet it just happens to be able to deal with both of those threats of black’s, even though it is so ugly in that it allows either of them without a fight.
Like me, you seem to need more practice at having those unintuitive ugly moves that save the game jump out at you.
In a real game I am not sure if I would have found it (though I think and hope so and though I have to admit that it isn’t a very hard move to find, is it?) but with the “hint” it took my only seconds to see it.
Why isn’t there a little Susan in our head telling us if there is something going on on the board? 😉
tvtom wrote:
As after Nh3+ or Qxg2+ the king can retreat to e1, both avoiding mate and protecting the white queen. Play could then go:
14 Kf2 Qxg2+
15 Ke1 NxB
16 Bd4 and white has survived with a good position;
My question is: why 15. …NxB, and why doesn’t white reply to this with 16. NxN or QxN?
In my opinion
1-QxN QxQ
2-Ne5 Qh4
3-Nf6+ KxB
4-NxR+ Kf8
5-Nc7
And the Queen is exchanged by a rook, and a minor piece, plus a pawn. Or is it crazy?
Turba said…
“In my opinion
1-QxN QxQ
2-Ne5 Qh4
3-Nf6+ KxB
4-NxR+ Kf8
5-Nc7
And the Queen is exchanged by a rook, and a minor piece, plus a pawn. Or is it crazy?”
Well, in this variation white is doing ok, but black snatches another pawn in the variation I came up with above, where the queen made a different retreat to d2:
“14 (Qxf4) (Qxf4)
15 Nd5 Qd2
16 Nf6+ KxB
17 NxR+ Kf8
18 Nxc7 Rb8
19 Rfe1 Qxb2 and after everything that can be snatched on both sides has been snatched, white has a rook and knight for the queen, but black looks better. Both the 14 Kf2 variations I looked at look better than this, so I’d say that Kf2 is the best try to save the game.”
I still think the Kf2 variations look better for white than this. What do you think?
And Ioannis said…
“tvtom wrote:
‘As after Nh3+ or Qxg2+ the king can retreat to e1, both avoiding mate and protecting the white queen. Play could then go:
14 Kf2 Qxg2+
15 Ke1 NxB
16 Bd4 and white has survived with a good position’
My question is: why 15. …NxB, and why doesn’t white reply to this with 16. NxN or QxN?”
Well, black’s knight is attacked, and white’s bishop is attacked. If black could trade the knight for the bishop and white retakes, either with the queen or knight as you suggest, then black plays KxB and black gets 2 bishops for the knight. By playing NxB, black trades off his attacked piece while still attacking the bish on g7.
So it makes sense to trade off the attacked knight because if white wastes the tempo to retake, then black snatches the other bishop.
Another reasonable alternative might be 15…Qxh2, snatching a pawn while protecting the knight. But this move allows white to retreat his own bish with 15 Bd4! (covering the g1 and f2 squares with the retreating bish so that …Bh3 can be met with Rg1). And now white has three minor pieces to black’s two, or more accurately is up a bishop for two pawns. I think this is worse for Black than playing 15…NxB.
Maybe best of all is for black not to snatch the g-pawn at all in response to Kf2, and instead just play 14…KxN right away. However, white can get out of the discovered attack on the queen without losing a tempo by checking with 15 Qd4+ and then pushing 16 g3 to protect the g-pawn and kick the knight, parrying all of black’s threats. Play might go:
14 Kf2 KxB
15 Qd4+ Kg8
16 g3 NxB
17 NxN and we somehow amazingly have a materially equal game. Nonetheless, maybe KxN is black’s best response to 14 Kf2! What do you think?
Note in that last variation:
14 Kf2 KxB
if white doesn’t throw in the check with Qd4+ before kicking the knight, then black has nasty threats with Qc5+, which otherwise would be protected by white’s queen posted strongly on d4:
14 Kf2 KxN
15 g3? Qc5+
16 Ke1 Ng2+
17 Kd1 Ne3+ with a nasty king & rook fork. There are a lot of tricky moves in this position, and both sides seem to have to get the order of moves perfect and conserve every tempo, or else face impending disaster. Yet with precise play,
14 Kf2! KxB!
15 Qd4! Kg8
16 g3 still seems to even things out.
Kf2 was the first move that came into my mind in this position. Also after Kf2 Qg2+ Ke1 Ne2 white doesn’t have to take back but play Bh6 instead. Black knight has nowhere to go.
I am not sure how a forced move can be ugly, nor how Timman could possibly have had such a haalucination so early in the game. He has done so more than any other GM I can recall, but usually closer to move 40.
14.Kf2 preparing Qd4 (+) and bringing rooks to kingside to advance pawns and White may even have a tiny edge. 14.Kf2!(forced) Qxg2+?? loses as the knight and queen are both loose and Black remains down a piece for the moment! What a horrible oversight, why did he not spend an hour working out the only move that doesn”t either lose on the spot or leave White down too much material to have a chance at all?
Maybe Timman spent too much time on 14.Qf4 Qf4 15.Nd5! which at least gets a rook and piece for the queen, despite losing a few pawns, and when he saw he was losing never went back to 14.Kf2.
Games like this are why I prefer to play over correspondence games.
Ken
Thanks tvtom! The position is also discussed by Steve Giddins in Chessbase: http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=4063