Photo credit: Lennart Ootes
Fabi wins US Championship!
THE GAMES SPEAK FOR ITSELFHey there, Allen here! Hope y’all are doing great. Today we are gonna look at some of the most dramatic and insane attacking games from US Championship 2023. And, Fabiano Caruana won his 3rd title. I write a chess magazine asdmagazine.substack.com**. Feel free to check it out to get posts like these. Also follow me on twitter Allen. Consider liking this post and subscribe to my chess magazine. Without further ado, let’s get into the article!
Before we look at the games, I’ve got a puzzle for you. Feel free to solve it and drop your answers in the comments section
(Black to play and win)
I hope you could solve it. Incase you couldn’t, let me give you a hint. Look for long diagonal infiltrations, overloaded pieces and damaging the pawn structure.
Game-1: Dominguez vs Dariusz (0.5-0.5)
This was an amazing game (Dominguez vs Dariusz), they played a Ruy-Lopez Arkhangelsk variation. Dominguez was always on the dominating side. This game is a good example of how painful it is to get your knight pinned to the queen after castling. You should be able to appreciate the value of prophylactic moves like h3 and h6 after this game.
The first 10 moves were pretty normal, nothing much to say about it. The turning point came at move 13. White caught black in slightly uncomfortable position. With the white knight jumping to c3 to d5, black was forced to play g5 and weaken his own structure. Instead of retreating the bishop to g3, white went for Nxg5!
At first, this sacrifice doesn’t make much sense as it doesn’t accomplish anything. Also Qf3 which is met with Kg7. There is no real threat right away, but white had evil intentions. It is so savage and out of this world. You might think white’s plan is to plant his knight on d5 without getting captured in which case he would be simply winning. But, that wasn’t the idea. The idea was to play rook to a3 and swing it all the way to g3.
Here, black captured the bishop and went for Nf5, with the intention to stop the rook from coming g3 and play Bd4 followed by Qd7 next, getting out of the pin. After 18. Nd2 Bd4, 19. Qf3, black played a slight inaccurate move 19..Qd7?!. The problem with this move is that after 20. Bxf6 Bxf6 21. Qg4+, black cannot play Ng7 which was possible if the queen was on c8. Also, after 21..Bg7, 22. Ne4 wins a tempo for white, threatening Nf6+ and also Ng3. So black has to waste a move with Qc8.
After this Dominguez played a flawless attack. First, he corned the king to h8, made use of the pinned knight and went for g4-g5, went for the rook lift with Rxa4. White was crashing through and black was dead. But there is a twist... After 30..a4, Dominguez couldn’t figure out a way to convert this advantage into a win. The reason behind this was, he was under 5 minutes!
Dominguez was under severe time pressure and couldn’t figure out the way to win. Also, with the a-pawn marching down the board, Dominguez definitely didn’t want to risk the game and went for a three-fold-repetition. At the final position, the evaluation was +2.80. A huge save for Dariusz, props to him for defending a hopeless position so well and saving a draw.
Now, I want you guys to try and find the plan that Dominguez missed. It’s such a simple and subtle idea that made the difference. Take time, don’t rush.
White to play and win
Could you find it? I think gxh6 is a useless move as it blocks the h-file and black can play Bd4 or Bc3 and suddenly there is no attack. The only way white can attack is to exploit the weak a1-h8 diagonal. But black has a dark squared bishop, so it’s impossible to attack after gxh6.
Nxh6 looks good. The drawback with this move is that after Bxh6, Qxh6+ and Kg8, white cannot play g6 and Rh4 because of Qg7. Also, after g6 and Qg7, there is no gxf7 as the pawn is pinned to the king. If gxf7 was possible, then white wins as Kxf7 runs into Re7+ and Rxf7 runs into Rg1.
So, instead of going in straight for the attack, white should play Kh1! first. Now, the plan discussed above is certainly possible and black is not intime to save the game. This was the winning plan for white.
Game-2: Andrew Tang vs Dariusz (1-0)
This was a very weird game (Andrew vs Dariusz). The opening was a bit offbeat, black equalized the game with minimal effort. In fact, black emerged better after the opening. White was focusing on the queenside, aiming for space expansion.
The position was roughly equal until move 30 when white slowly started to shift his focus to kingside. First, Andrew fixed the queenside pawns with a5 and b4. Then he shifted his rooks to f and g-files.
Things started going downhill for black on move 38, when black played Rd7. Apparently black had to play 38..e5, because after 39. dxe5 Re6, 40. Rfg3 g6, 41. Rh4 Qxe5, 42. Qxh6, black has Qg7 guarding both h7 and h8. But in case of 38..Rd7, black’s queen doesn’t have the option to play Qe5-g7. Because of this, black had to play 39..g5, giving up his queen (or) 39..f5, overextending his pawns.
After 40. Rg6 (40. Rh4 was better as Qxh6 was unstoppable), black had only move to stay in the game, that is 40..Rxc3. It’s not an obvious move, you will have to calculate what happens after Rxh6 Qd1+ and so on. Also, as it was move 40, black was running short on time and played the natural 40..Kh7, defending h6.
The position was pretty hopeless, the e6-pawn fell, white occupied the open c and e-files with his rooks and stacked them on the 8th rank. There was nothing that black could do.
On move 45, black blundered with the move Qg6, blocking the king’s only escape square. Black was hoping for Rb1+ followed by Qd6, forcing an exchange of queens. If black manages to exchange queens, he should draw the game. But white had a devilish plan...super devilish. Black missed one insane mating net, can you find it?
White to play and win
Could you find it? In case you couldn’t, don’t worry. Honestly, I couldn’t. Here’s the solution: 48. Rh8+ Kg6, 49. Rc6!! Qxc6(pretty much forced), 50. Qe8+...now black has only three options Kf6, Kg5 and Rf7. 50..Rf7 loses the queen (note that this mating net wouldn’t have worked if the rook weren’t on c-file). 50..Kf6 runs into 51. Rf8+ Kg5, 52. f4+ Kxf4 (if Kh4, then g3#), 53. Qe5+ followed by Qxf5#. Now, we are left with only 50..Kg5. This runs into 51. f4 Kxf4, 52. Qe5+ Kg5, 53. h4+ Kxh4, 54. Qf4+ Kh5, 55. Qf5+ g5, 56. Qh3+ Kg6, 57. Rxh6+....
Well.. that was one hell of a game. Crazy combination at the end, definitely one of my favorite games. Black had a better position right out of the opening, we had a bunch of exchanges, white shifted his attack to the kingside at the right time and black was not prepared for it.
Game-3: Robson Ray vs Jeffrey Xiong (1-0)
I saved the best for the last (Robson vs Jeffrey). Robson destroyed Jeffrey in just 29 moves. We had Petrov’s defense, The first 12 moves were theory, there is not much to discuss about it. White made his intentions very clear, he was ready for a kingside attack with f4-f5 and Ng3.
White was better right out of the opening, he had more space, better developed pieces and was ready for an attack. But black on the other hand was under developed and had poor coordination. By move 17, white was down a pawn, but had excellent compensation. He had a powerful bishop staring at the a1-h8 diagonal, a queen staring at the g6 pawn, a rook dominating the f-file.
Jeffrey played 17..Re8. Here white went for an insane king hunt. It wasn’t winning, but black had only move to stay in the game, any other move resulted in checkmate. Can you find that beautiful sequence?
White to play
Could you find it? In my opinion, the first 3 moves seem kinda obvious. 18. Rxf7! Kxf7, 19. Rf1+ Ke7, 20. Qxg6...white is threatening Rf7#. Black has a lot of options, but only one move saves the game. Black can go for Qd6, Qa5, Qd7, Rf8, Be6 and Kd7. Qd6 and Qa5 run into Rf7+ followed by Qd6. Qd7 runs into the 21. Bf6+! Kd6, 22. Bxh4+ Kc5, 23. Nf5 with Bf2+ and Nd4 following up, black’s position is hopeless. Rf8 loses to Bc5+.
We are left with only two moves: Be6 and Kd7. Kd7 is the only move that saves the game for black. Be6 was played in the game, we’ll look at that later. What if black goes for Kd7? White should continue with 21. Rf7+ Re7, 22. Bc5 Rxf7, 23. Qxf7+ Be7, 24. Nf5 Qf8, 26. Qh7 Ke8, 27. Nxe7... Black can go for 27..Qf4 and white has no good way to stop perpetual checks. But, I think we all can agree that this was an insanely hard variation for any human to visualize.
Now, let’s see why Be6 is bad. 21. Qg7+ Kd6, 22. Be5+ Kc5, 23. Bd4+ Kd6, 24. Be5+ Kc5, 25. Bc7!...White is threatening Qc3+ followed by a4+ and Qa5#. So, black has to defend his queen and block the queen’s diagonal. 25..Bf6 is the only way out and white goes for 26. Rxf6, still threatening the queen.
Now, any rook move will allow the queen to jump into c3, so black has to either block the diagonal or attack the queen. Blocking is not an option, so either Re7 or Rg8 is pretty much forced. In the game black tried Rg8 which allowed Ne4+. Black cannot take the knight because of Rf5+!! followed by Qc3.
Black went Kb5, white responded with a4+!, drawing the king forward and also preventing the move b6 followed by Ka6. Black went Kb4 and white played Qh6 threatening the infiltration to d2. Black had enough and resigned the game at this point.
That’s it for today guys, hope you enjoyed it. If you did, consider liking this post and subscribe to my chess magazine asdmagazine.substack.com. Leave your thoughts in the comments section, I will be more than happy to receive them. I will see you in my next article.
Signing off— Allen.
