Solomon, Stephen - Hopewell, Nigel
1988
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 O-O 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.Nbd2 cxd4 13.cxd4 Rd8?! A Keres idea, one which I've always been a little doubtful about, but that hasn't stopped me from playing it three times. I guess I played it because I'm a weenie unconfident of my knowledge of the various defences. This is a rather little-known variation. The idea is that after the perfunctory (13...Rd8 14.Nf1 Black plays 14...exd4 15.Nxd4 d5 with 'active play,' but I suspect the whole idea is positionally suspect anyway. Of course, Black welcomes 14. d5 (d5 is only good after 13...Bb7 when the Bishop is a little misplaced). ) 14.b3
Moves are clickable
I think this move is quite good, as it makes the ...exd4 and ...d5 idea untenable, as White controls e4. Therefore what the hell am I doing with my rook on d8? 14...exd4 My ldea was to try and utilise the weakening of the long Black diagonal (via Nc6, Bf6). ( However, this turns out unsatisfactory, it was probably better to play 14...Nc6 first ) 15.Bb2 Nd7 16.Rc1 Ne5 17.Nxd4 Qb6 18.Nf1 Bf6 19.Ne3 Be6 20.Nd5? Rather a poor move from Solo. Simply with 20 f4 White forces favourable exchanges and enhances his advantage, e.g. (20.f4 Nec6 21.Nxc6 Bxb2 22.Nxd8 Bxc1 23.Qxc1 Rxd8 24.Qd2 with clear advantage. ) 20...Bxd5 21.exd5 Re8? I had in mind what I thought was an equalising manoeuvre - exchanging darksquare bishops via the tactic ...Nf3. However, the idea was rather naive, as I failed to take into account the resulting bereavement of my king's defences. Instead, 21...Rc8 should equalise. 22.Bb1 Nb7? Rather bad. 22...Rac8 was best. (22...Nf3+ looks unsavoury as after 23.Qxf3 and the exchange on d4 and of a pair of Knights (Ed: Rooks?), White's rook comes to the seventh, hitting f7. 23...Rxe1+ 24.Rxe1 Bxd4 25.Bxd4 Qxd4 26.Re7 ) 23.Nc6 Nf3+ 24.Qxf3 Bxb2 25.Bxh7+! Kf8 Accepting is out of the question, although it took a considerable lump of my time convincing myself of this. It's quite beautiful how denuded of defence Black's king is despite the presence, on an open board, of his queen, rook and bishop. Unfortunately, I haven't got down the illustrative variations, but basically White's queen and knight e7 make Black's king position very uncomfortable. Solo showed me that White doesn't even need the help of a rook, he can simply enlist the help of his g and h pawns. Quite beautiful! Note how hapless the Qb6 and Nb7 are! 26.Ne7!!
What a lovely move. 26...Bf6 (26...Rxe7 27.Rxe7 Kxe7 28.Rc6 Qa5 29.Qe2+ Be5 30.f4 with a clear advantage - beautiful! If 30...f6 the white squares are drastically weakened. So, tactically the move itself is justified, but what is the idea, why place it there? Well, I'm afraid I was totally dumbfounded at the time, and could not work out, at all, what he was up to. ) 27.Ng8! A beautiful concept! At the time I was still very much bemused, in fact right to the finish of the game I found it difficult to comprehend the validity of having a knight on g8 and a bishop of h7. The basic strength in Ng8 is that it disrupts Black's defence by controlling two key squares, f6 and e7. 27...Be5 28.Rc6 Qa5 29.Rec1 Nd8 I was now in dire time trouble, and had to play all my moves almost immediately to move 40 and Solo had only 10 minutes left. 30.Rc7 Qd2 lt's amazing, despite the open board, how constricted Black's forces are, and how wonderfully co-ordinated (paradoxically enough, for me at the time) White's are. White has just about absolute control of the board. 31.g3 Qg5 32.h4 Qd2 33.Kg2 a5 34.R1c2 Qd4 35.Bg6?? I thought this was all White had, and Solo couldn't see anything better in the little time he had. However, simply 35..h5! with the idea of 30.h6 is amazingly strong, and there is nothing Black can do about it. 35...Kxg8 36.Bxf7+ Nxf7 37.Qxf7+ Kh8 38.R2c4 bxc4 39.Qh5+ Kg8 40.Qf7+ Well, I enjoyed that, how about you? 1/2-1/2 1/2-1/2