Annotations by Josiah Stearman1.e4c52.Nc3...For those who know me well, this is my bread and butter. Back
in 2018 I won a key game with the white pieces in a Closed Sicilian to clutch
my first IM norm. That game has also been covered in a Chess Life Online
article.2....d63.Bb5+Bd74.Bxd7+Qxd75.d4cxd46.Qxd4Nc67.Qd3...Very
strange to allow Black to develop with tempi, and the position sees more or
less harmless for Black...7....g68.Nf3Bg79.Bg5?!h69...Nf610.Nd5This is the main point of 9. Bg5: to put pressure on the f6-knight and force
Black to make a decision. We will see later that when I played it, it was no
longer viable.10.Bh4Rc811.O-ONf612.Nd5?!...Up to this moment I had
been blitzing out all my moves. From my memory, these were all general ideas
of this opening setup. I had unfortunately forgotten the exact move order.12....g5?Missing a chance.12...Nxd5!13.exd5Nb414.Qb3Na6!A very
innocuous maneuver. It turns out Black is much much better. The misplaced
h4-bishop serves as a key player in that evaluation.13.Bg3Nh5?!The
wrong direction. There is no incentive to trade the h5-knight for the
g3-bishop.13...Nxd514.exd5Nb415.Qe4!Na616.Nd4!Now that Black
has included ...g6-g5, this position is no longer as solid.14.c3O-O15.Ne3Nxg316.hxg3e6?While he was worried about Ne3-f5,
this has now created an extra weak pawn on d6.17.Rad1Rfd818.Nd4!...My idea is simple, f2-f4 is coming!18....Nxd419.cxd4Qa4!?20.a3...At this
point, I was pretty sure of victory. I had 85 minutes to his 40 or so, and the
ideas for Black are not clear at all. He chose to try activity, but it is just
too late.20....b521.f4gxf422.gxf4Kh823.f5!b424.f6Bf8A very brutal
sight to see on the kingside.25.b3?...I got a bit too flashy here...25.Ng4!!When your opponent's king is so exposed like this, oftentimes the kill
is ready.bxa326.Qh3Kh727.bxa3with a devasting attack to come.25....Qxa325...Qa5!26.axb4Qg5!+−Black is still close to completely
lost, but at least has some fight left in him.26.Nc4Qa627.d5!...My point was now the f8-bishop is dead, and that was worth my a3-pawn. Not a
bad idea at all, but unnecessary.27....Qb528.g4...I now was preparing a devasting
attack.28....exd529.exd5Re830.Kg2a531.Rh1Qd732.Rh4Re5It is that desperate of a scenario for Black.
We still have to be careful though, as once the Knight on c4 departs the
c-file is for Black's taking. In times like these, Sam Shankland's "calculate
until mate" echoes through my head.33.Nxe5dxe534.Qd2!Kg835.Rdh1!To the naked eye it seems like a strange place to
resign, but I will leave it up to the reader to find the unstoppable threat...1-0