Wood, Nathan (1603) - Hanrahan, Nigel (1723)
[ECO = B19] Caro-Kann: Classical/Capablanca Variation
1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bf5 5.Ng3 Bg6 6.h4 h6 7.Nf3
7.h5 Nathan noted after the game that this move might have been a great help later on.
7...Nd7 8.Bd3 Bxd3 9.Qxd3 Ngf6 10.Bd2 e6 11.0-0-0 Bd6 12.Ne2 Qc7 13.c4 b6 14.Nc3
14...0-0 Alternately, 14...Bf4 15.Bxf4 Qxf4+ 16.Qe3 Qxe3+ 17.fxe3 a6 The position is equal here.
15.g3 Rfb8 16.Kb1 Qb7 17.Rde1 Ng4 18.Ne4 Bc7 19.Qe2 b5 20.c5 b4 21.Nfg5 Ngf6 22.Nxf6+ Nxf6 23.Nxf7 Kxf7 24.Qxe6+
24...Kg6 This is a "box" or only move. (The term comes from a ChessBase symbol.) White simply missed this possibility. If you play the Caro-Kann then you'll sometimes need a mobile and intelligent king who can remain calm while under heavy attack.
Much worse for Black is 24...Kf8 25.Bxh6 Bd8 26.Bf4 ... which looks winning for White.
25.g4 (Edited to add: Tony Boron points out in the comments that 25. h5+ is very good for White.) Qc8 26.h5+
Much better for White is 26.Qxc6 A change of strategy from a mating net to the creation of a couple of united passed pawns would have given White the upper hand and created further problems for Black.
26...Kh7 27.Qf7 Ba5 28.Re7
Good for White is 28.Bxh6 Qf8 29.Qg6+ Kg8 30.Re6 The c6 pawn should drop and White has the upper hand.
28...Qf8 I found another box move. If 28...Qg8 then 29. Qxf6, White gets his piece back, and the attack continues. 29.Qg6+
29...Kh8?? An awful move made in time trouble.
29...Kg8 is another box move for Black here. White cannot take with 30. Bxh6 since the e7 rook is floating. I just plain missed this ... and so did my opponent who followed my blunder with one of his own. It's a remarkable thing how often this happens in chess. After 29...Kg8 30.Re6 Qf7 and Black can hold.
30.Bxh6?? Seeing this move, I thought that Caissa, goddess of Chess, was smiling upon me.
Much better, and winning for White, is 30.Rf7! Qxf7 ( 30...Qg8?? 31.Bxh6 wins as well) 31.Qxf7 Rf8.
30...Qxe7 31.Bxg7+? The bishop yells "Banzai!" in a final Kamikaze attack. 31...Qxg7 32.Qxg7+ Kxg7 0-1
"Another Hanrahan swindle," I said to Jim Green, following the game. Actually, it was more of an escape than an act of thievery. "H" is for Harry Houdini. It must have been a double disappointment for Nathan who mustered a fine attack against me and just failed to close despite having plenty of time to find the win (with an hour on the clock to my few minutes).
I think I've got a game viewer working at last. Thanks to ChessVideos.tv I still want to use Nikolai Pilafov's viewer but that will take a little longer. Here is the game:
5 comments:
Nigel,
The "box" symbol is not a Chessbase symbol it is an Informator (Chess Informant)symbol. The languageless symbols (there are dozens of them), were developed by the Chess Informant folk sin the 60's and 70's and have been adopted as a standard.
Thanks for the information. I have an old Informant publication from 1972 on the Skopje Olympiad, edited by Aleksandar Matanovic, which uses that symbol. I should have had a look.
Do you have any idea when the term "box move", as opposed to "only move", first came into usage? I've been wondering about that for some time and failed to find an answer.
On another subject ...how do you like the game viewer? In the future I hope to have annotations as part of it. I was able to use an IFRAME tag ... which is odd because a similar tag, from another viewer, didn't work in my previous attempts.
Nigel,
I believe you are perhaps only the second person to use "box move" on the internet. To me it does not make sense to say "box move" instead of "only move". The only time I can imagine it being used is when two players are going over a game,both familiar with Informator symbols, and one punctuates their move with "box, similar to one saying "exclam" or "double exclam" for a very good move.
Otherwise, in print, it doesn't make sense.
Try it with the other informator symbols; the only other ones I have heard in speech are +-, ?, ?? etc.
(In fact, !, ?, etc. predate informator of course.)
The viewer is nice.
I used one in the third round of the Yanofsky stuff.
The challenge of course is to get one that allows branched annotations.
Not so easy in these 3rd party blogs.
Nigel,
Going over your game, just looking at the diagrams and such; I thought 25. h5+ was strong. I checked with an engine and it is good.
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