Independent Pursuits: Chess
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Your support makes all the difference.THIS WEEKEND there were sessions of both our own Four Nations Chess League (4NCL, as it is known) in Birmingham and Bundesliga matches in Germany.
The 4NCL is rapidly developing, but many players like to jet over to Germany, so there were plenty of British troops in action there: Peter Wells for Passau, Hodgson and Conquest for Delmenhorst, Nigel Short - in fine form beating the dangerous Russian, Alexander Morozevich, on Saturday and almost defeating Arthur Yusupov on Sunday - and Dan King for Castrop and Matthew Sadler and myself for Solingen.
The Solingen team is so strong that, even in the absence of Michael Adams, I was playing on the sixth of the eight boards behind Yusupov, Sadler, Nikolic, Hubner and Piket. As we should have, we won both matches, which gives us a perfect four wins out of four going into next weekend's match against the powerful Dresden team, headed by Alexei Shirov. I managed to win both games against reasonably strong international masters. Here is the story of my first win on Saturday.
After some fencing, we transposed to a venerable line of the Nimzo-Indian Defence. If 11..a6 12.Be2, the tiny weakness induced on b6 may be significant later. In the critical diagram position, if 14...Bg4 15.e4 Ne7 16.c4 gives a pleasant edge. 14...Bf5 is also critical when I might well have tried 15.e4!? Bxe4 (if 15...Nxe4!? 16.Nh4!) 16.Rxe4 Nxe4 17.Qe1 Rxd5 18.Qxe4.
If 17...Qe5 18.c7 Rdc8 19.gxf3!. After 20.e4!, the bishops were very powerful in the ending and I cleaned up fairly efficiently.
White: Jon Speelman
Black: Holger Ellers
Bundesliga, 21 November 1998
Nimzo-Indian Defence
1.Nf3 Nf6
2.c4 e6
3.Nc3 d5
4.d4 Bb4
5.e3 0-0
6.Bd3 c5
7.0-0 Nc6
8.a3 Bxc3
9.bxc3 dxc4
10.Bxc4 Qc7
11.Bb5 Rd8
12.Re1 Bd7
13.Bf1 e5
14.d5 (see diagram) e4
15.dxc6 Bg4
16.Qb3 exf3
17.Qxb7 Rac8
18.Qxc7 Rxc7
19.h3 Bh5
20.e4 Rxc6
21.e5! Nd5
22.g4 Bg6
23.Rd1 Rcc8
24.Bg5 f6
25.exf6 Nxf6
26.Ba6! Ra8
27.Bb7 Rxd1
28.Rxd1 Rb8
29.Bxf3 Ne4
30.Be3 Nxc3
31.Rd7 Be4
32.Bxe4 Nxe4
33.Re7 Rb1+
34.Kh2 Nf6
35.Bxc5 a5
36.Ra7 Rb5
37.Bd4 Ne8
38.Kg2 Rd5
39.Bb6 Nd6
40.Rd7!
Black resigns
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