Monday night’s match ended in defeat for the Sluggers: 2.5 –
1.5. Despite a substantial deficit in ELO Average (almost 80 points) the
Sluggers appeared to be teetering close to a drawn or even won match at various
points during the match.
The most important game of the match turned out to be on
board two where the Slugger’s FM Marcel Milat had White against IM Keaton
Kiewra. Marcel was able to establish quite a nice position in the King’s Indian
using the older continuation of 10.g3 in
the Bayonet Attack. This choice paid off nicely since by move 15 (15.Bxe4!)
White already had the initiative and a pleasant light-squared bind. For a long
time, Marcel possessed the bishop pair and a potentially devastating dominance
on the light-squares while IM Kiewra appeared to only be looking for some
counterplay. But with very resourceful and accurate play (27….Rxb7! 28.Qxb7
e4!) the game once again looked very unclear and dangerous for both sides. The players continued to trade accurate moves
back and forth (29.Rg3!, 30…Be5!) when finally Marcel made a decisive misstep
in the form of 33.Kh3 whereupon 33…e3! Was lights out as would have been 33…Rf5!.
Instead, had Marcel played 33.Kh1!, analysis shows that it
is Black who must play accurately to compensate for his material deficit. Note
that the bishop on e5 can not capture on g3 because of Qg7 mate. The move 33…e3
could, in this case, be dealt with effectively via 34.Rg2 Qf3 35.Qc6 as 34…Qf3
is not check. Instead Black would carefully need to play 33…Qb2! Followed by 34.Rd1
Bxg3 35.hxg3 Rf2 36.Qg7+ Qxg7 37.hxg7+ Kxg7 with an equalized ending.
With this slight misstep, a game which appeared to even
having winning chances for the Sluggers ended in defeat and the remaining
boards were under pressure to produce a +1 result in order to tie the match, or
+2 result (of 3 games) to win the match. But this did not seem like too
terribly unlikely. On board one, IM Slava Mikhailuk was defending the Black side
of a dangerous looking attack on his kingside arising from the Sicilian. IM
Zhanibek Amanov wielded the White pieces and was proceeding down the board, but
Slava was remaining alert and gradually finding decent activity for his pieces.
After some back-and-forth mistakes (18…Bb7? Was mistaken and
should have been met with 19.Qf2! rather than 19.Rf2? for example) Black had
just about equalized when he made a critical oversight and played 26…Bxg7?
27.Rxf7 Qe2? Aiming to tie the queen down to e3 so she could not capture on g6.
But Amanov quickly revealed a combination which Slava had overlooked: 28.Rxg7+!
Kxg7 29.Qe5+ Kg8 30.Bd4 and the mate threats on g7 and h8 were far too much to
cope with. Instead, Slava could have
played 26…Bd6! Whereupon 27.Qh3 (or 27.Qh4) can be met with 27…f5! amazingly
solving Black’s defensive problems. Thus here too, equality was close at hand
just before a tactical mistake spelled defeat for the Sluggers.
This game wrapped up not too long after Marcel’s and thus
the Sluggers had scored 0/2 where 1/2 or even 1.5/2 had moments ago seemed
feasible. But the Sluggers were not to be counted out! NM Josh Sinanan played
quite smoothly and cashed in on a couple of inaccuracies (20…c5? in particular)
by FM Eugene Yanayt to gain a healthy extra pawn with big winning chances. Still
after some back and forth inaccuracies for both sides, FM Yanayt missed an
opportunity to nearly equalize the ending with 35…Nh5+ when the check buys just
enough tiem to coordinate the Black forces and avoid conceding any extra
material. Instead after 35…Nf5 36.Rd7 White was back on a healthy path to
victory and before long had regained his extra pawn, thereby obtaining a pair
of protected passed pawns on the queenside. The game ended in checkmate and the
Sluggers still had a chance to equalize the match.
It looked like this just might happen as on board three the
Slugger’s FM Curt Collyer had gained an extra pawn against FM Konstantin
Kavutskiy and appeared to have winning chances though it never quite looked
like he would be able to break White’s resistance. Curt Collyer again sprung
his 1…b6 defense and managed to, again, acquire quite a decent position! By
move 15 (15…Nb4) it was already clear that White had not managed to gain much
of anything out of the opening. The long maneuvering struggle which ensued
remained mostly balanced though for a while it appeared that White had modestly
better chances. At one point in the game, both players faltered severely, and
Black should have ended up down a piece. This occurred after 30…Bb3? When White
missed the opportunity to play 31.Qd3! threatening Qb5 and simply planning to
meet 31…Bxa4 with 32.Qc4 b5 33.Qxc6. There is no adequate solution to this move
and Black could have lost the game. Instead, FM Kavutskiy played the more meek
31.Bc2? and Black had attained full equality. A further serious mistake by
Kavutskiy (36.f4?) simply blundered away a pawn and gave Black substantial
winning chances. Tragically, Curt missed his chance when he played the quite
natural recapture 63…Nxb5 instead of cleverly using the king to capture the pawn
with 63…Kb6! 64.Kf2 a3! 65.Nc1 Kxb5 66.Ke3 Kc4 67.Kd2 Nf5 68.Kc2 Nxd4 69.Kb1
Kc3! -+ With the idea of 70.Ka2 Kc2 -+. Instead after 63…Nxb5, the slight loss
of time for the king’s penetration was enough to allow White to hold the draw.
Though he fought to the very last, Curt was unable to finally make anything of
his extra pawn and the game was finally drawn.
A disappointing loss for the Sluggers but as the playoff
seat had already been secured – the Sluggers will play on next week! Best of
luck Sluggers!
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