A Good Run in the Sicilian
Submitted by on Sat, 11/21/2009 at 1:50pm.
Today, I am actually showcasing one of my recent games on here where the Sicilian Opening had laid out a few gems for me. The reason I'm posting this is because when the chess.com computer analysis finished, I was pleasantly greeted with the fact that I only committed 3 inaccuracies and 8 mistakes according to the ~2200 strength engine. The second reason I wanted to present this game is because it is my best win, by far, against an undefeated, 2283 rated player and after the game he had a record of 55 wins, 1 loss (against me), and 1 draw. Now, I'll use the analysis to dig right into the most crucial part of this game which lasted from 23. h5 to 32. Nxf8. Here is a diagram from the position after 23. h5:
Now, 23. h5 to try and break down Black's Pawn structure and leave the King exposed. 24. Nd5?! sought to hopefully relieve the Queen's duty of guarding e7 and f6 which I perceived as being critical for controlling them. 25. Qc3?! threatens mate in 1 and forces Black to play 25...f6 to guard. 26. Ng5! forces Black's Queen into an undesirable position and, in this case, he chose e5 which, I think, is the best choice. 27. Qxe5 was a logical move because it removes the defender of the critical e7 square like I was talking about earlier. 28. Ne7+ is the natural continuation that forces twin_Iri's King into the corner. 29. hxg6 capitalizes on the fact that he is trapped because if he is tempted to take my Knight on g5, then I would follow up with 30. g7#! He saw that and, instead, plays 29...hxg6 avoiding mate. 30. Nxg6+ forks him again. The other purpose for this move is to guard that all-powerful Passed Pawn that is slowly encroaching towards h8. 31. h7+?! just further pushes my Pawn along the way. Right now, Black is still in relatively good shape and could rally back for a win if I'm not careful. Fortunately, he made a major blunder that ultimately cost him the game. After I took his Rook (32. Nxf8), he re-took with his King (32...Kxf8?) rather than his Rook. At a glance, it doesn't seem like a bad move at all, but he must have forgotten that his Rook was preventing my successful Promotion and that his King got in the way of that invisible barrier. I Promoted into a Queen and the game basically ended there. The full game is shown below:
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