ChessVibes Strikes Back: Inarkiev Should Have Subscribed!
Saturday, May 29, 2010 at 2:05AM In this recent post I very mildly chided the ChessVibes Openings (CVO) annotators for what I took to be a slightly foolish comment, though against the background of my generally positive view of their product. As it turns out, the small flaw I had pointed out was greatly outweighed by its excellence in other games, most notably the comments to Radjabov - Mamedyarov from the Astrayawn Grand Prix.
After the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Bxc6 dxc6 5.0-0 Qf6 6.d4 exd4 7.Bg5 Qd6 8.Nxd4 Bd7 9.Nc3 Qg6 10.Qd2, the game continued with 10...Bf6, but in their thorough notes IMs Van Delft and Ris mention 10...f6? 11.Bf4 0-0-0
which meets the stunning refutation (and new move) 11.Ncb5!!
The two basic tactical points they note are 11...axb5 12.Qa5+- and 11...cxb5 12.Qc3 c6 13.Qa5+-.
Fast forward to later that day, to the rapid game Jakovenko - Inarkiev from the first round of their mini-match at the ACP World Rapid Cup. Had Inarkiev seen CVO, he would have known to avoid it; instead, he fell for it hook, line and sinker! He tried the second move given above, 11...cxb5, and after 12.Qc3 varied with 12...Bc6. That avoided an immediate mate, but his position was thoroughly lost after 13.Nxc6 bxc6 14.Qxc6 Bd6 15.Rad1. He kicked on to move 44, but as Mikhail Golubev commented in his annotations for Chess Today, "Black's resistance [after move 19 made no] sense".
Of course, it's impossible for all of us to keep up with everything - time, money, and the limits of our memory all have their say. But for theory fans, this example makes a case for keeping CVO in mind when choosing what resources to follow.
Reader Comments (2)
Inarkiev could have saved himself after 11.Ncb5 c:b5 13.Qc3 with 13..Bd6! (not 13..Bc6 ?) 14.B:d6 Bc6! 15.N:c6 R:d6
nice trap! I wonder if this move was covered in Stefan Kinderman's "the spanish exchange" by edition olms. I love that publisher for their sophisticated manuals, I'm curious though if this idea was mentioned in that book or not- does anyone know?