Gothenburg 2005

Round 6

Our match against Turkey was virtually over in less than an hour today and actually over in about two. Richard and John both went down with Black after tactical miscalculations left them completely busted within 20 moves. Alan and David both made solid draws with White in careful games which they could have played on but chose to preserve energy for the battles ahead.

6.19 35 Turkey 3 - 1 39 Wales

1 IM Haznedaroglu Kivanc 2430 1 : 0 FM Jones Richard 2325

2 IM Erdogdu Mert 2403 ½ : ½ FM James David 2213

3 FM Erturan Yakup 2311 1 : 0 Trevelyan John 2196

4 Esen Baris 2301 ½ : ½ Spice Alan 2175

Richard again followed an ultra-sharp Najdorf line (this time with Bg5) and his own analysis showed the position at move 16 as (=). Unfortunately his 17th move was (?) and his 19th was 'resigns'. Admittedly the Turk's final move (Bxa6!!) was spectacular and anyone could be excused for missing that.

Dave played the White side of a Samisch KID but aimed to restrain Black rather than castle Q-side and go all out for attack. After about 25 moves he still held a small advantage (space) but there was lots of play left

John's game started promisingly using a TN against the Nge2 line vs his Philidor that he'd picked up from the Jersey congress earlier this year. Unfornately he then got carried away and advanced his Q-side pawns before sorting his king out. When White played Ng5+ it was a clear "Hamlet moment" as the awful truth about what he'd done slowly sunk in.

Alan's 1.Nc3 brought an extremely cautious response as after 1...d5 2.e4 de was his opponent's one and only foray into Alan's half of the board in the whole game ! In a symmetrical pawn structure with only Q,B & N each left Alan still held about +0.2 advantage but it would have been difficult or risky to carry on. For those of you who play over the game tomorrow look at Bh4 in the final position. The idea is Qg5 and/or Nf5/h5+. If Black defends accurately (Qd6 followed by Qd1+ and Ng8)then he may not only survive but actually come out better). On the other hand the natural looking ...Qd4 loses to Nf5+! Baling out instead with a draw offer kept all Alan's chances going for the last 3 rounds.