D30 Queen's Gambit Declined: Systems without Nc3 (1.c4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.Bf4 e6 5.e3)

Today I have continued on going through my old over the board games and I will continue to do so tomorrow, but I think that next week I will go back to my latest correspondence games. The game below was played on the second round of a tournament that was played at Turku in 2006. On the first round of this tournament I drew against a player who was lower rated than me by 40 points. I was on a path of misery on the next round as well and lost to a lower rated player. Then on the fourth round I received a small consolation in form of a win against a player who was rated 1516. Considering how badly I had played the first four rounds, the last round game did not matter all that much to me anymore and I drew it against a member of the same team I represent. Therefore I ended up having only two points out of the possible five. I played on group D and I was 43rd in the final standings. There were 46 players in this tournament. The opening is not played in a theoretical move order in the game below, the move order in theory is 1.d4 d5 2.c4 c6 3.Nf3 Nf6. I do not always remember to mention when the move order is not the same as in theory, but maybe it does not always matter that much. However, I will try to remember to do that in the future.

I learned today that you can actually play both correspondence chess and live chess at Chess Tempo, which is interesting since I had not been there in a very long time, even though I like the site very much because of its Standard tactics solving feature. It means that you can use as much time as you want into solving the puzzles and you are not penalised for it. I may give the playing part of the site a try in the nearish future. That being said, I am already playing correspondence chess on six different sites and I have 119 games in progress at the same time at the moment. They take a bit too much of my time I think, but for some reason when I got to under 70 games in progress, I started a lot of games again... I may have some serious problems in that area. At the moment it would seem that there will never be a time when I would not be playing correspondence games. One of the reasons why I have so many games in progress is that I would like to get as much out of the sites I am playing at. Of course I should divert my time to solving tactics and maybe start going through chess books again in order to get my level of play higher than it is now.

[Event "TSY"] [Site "?"] [Date "2006.04.01"] [Round "2"] [White "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Black "Salmi, Marko"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "D30"] [WhiteElo "1644"] [BlackElo "1664"] [Annotator "Stockfish 6 64 BMI2 (30s), TV"] [PlyCount "86"] [EventDate "2006.04.01"] 1. c4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nf3 Nf6 {Slav Defense: Modern} 4. Bf4 (4. Bg5 {Slav Defense: Bonet Gambit}) (4. cxd5 cxd5 5. Nc3 Nc6 6. Bf4 Bf5 7. e3 e6 8. Qb3 Bb4 {Slav Defense: Exchange Variation, Trifunovic Variation}) (4. e3 Bf5 5. cxd5 cxd5 6. Nc3 e6 7. Ne5 Nfd7 {Queen's Gambit Declined: Slav, Amsterdam Variation} ) 4... e6 5. e3 {D30 Queen's Gambit Declined: Systems without Nc3} Bd6 6. Bd3 { N} (6. Bxd6 Qxd6 7. Bd3 (7. c5 Qd8 8. Nc3 b5 9. b4 a6 10. a3 Bb7 11. Bd3 Nbd7 12. O-O O-O 13. a4 Qc7 14. a5 h6 15. Re1 Rfe8 16. Qc2 e5 17. dxe5 Nxe5 18. Nxe5 Qxe5 19. Ne2 Bc8 20. Nd4 Bd7 21. Rad1 {1/2-1/2 (21) Valderrama Dahmen,M (1822) -Brizuela Veliz,J Antofagasta 2015}) 7... O-O 8. O-O dxc4 9. Bxc4 Nbd7 10. Nc3 a6 11. Rc1 b5 12. Bb3 c5 13. dxc5 Qxd1 14. Nxd1 Rd8 15. Nd4 Ne5 16. Nc3 Nd3 17. Rc2 Nxc5 18. h3 Nxb3 19. Nxb3 Bb7 20. Na5 Rab8 {Aleshin,N (2254)-Bakutin,A (2327) Tula 2007 1/2-1/2}) (6. Bg3 Bxg3 7. hxg3 Nbd7 8. Nc3 O-O 9. Bd3 h6 10. Ne5 Qc7 11. Nxd7 Qxd7 12. g4 dxc4 13. Bxc4 e5 14. g5 hxg5 15. Ne4 Qg4 16. Nxf6+ gxf6 17. Be2 Qf5 18. g4 Qe4 19. Bf3 Qg6 20. Be2 {1/2-1/2 (20) Cyrus,P (1925) -Nurlanov,Z Kemer 2009}) (6. Nc3 Bxf4 7. exf4 Nbd7 8. c5 b6 9. b4 bxc5 10. bxc5 Qa5 11. Qd2 Ba6 12. Be2 Bxe2 13. Kxe2 O-O 14. Rhb1 Rab8 15. Ne1 Rfc8 16. f3 Nf8 17. g3 N6d7 18. Nd3 f6 19. Rxb8 Rxb8 20. Rb1 Rxb1 {Orenda,O (2146)-Muslija,I (2211) Croatia 2010 0-1 (39)}) 6... Bxf4 7. exf4 O-O 8. O-O Qd6 9. g3 dxc4 10. Bxc4 b5 11. Bb3 (11. Be2 Bb7 {+/=}) 11... Bb7 {=} 12. Nbd2 a5 13. a4 Nbd7 14. Re1 Nb6 (14... h6 15. Bc2 {=}) 15. Bc2 (15. Qc2 Qb4 {=}) 15... Rfd8 (15... g6 16. Re5 {=}) 16. Qe2 (16. Ne4 Nxe4 17. Bxe4 g6 (17... Nxa4 $2 {doesn't lead to the expected results} 18. Bxh7+ Kxh7 19. Ng5+ Kg8 20. Qh5 {+-}) (17... bxa4 $4 {the pawn is safe and cannot be captured without dire consequences} 18. Bxh7+ Kxh7 19. Ng5+ Kg8 20. Qh5 {+-}) 18. axb5 Rdb8 19. Bxc6 Bxc6 20. bxc6 Qxc6 {+/=} ) 16... b4 {Black gains space} (16... Nxa4 $5 17. Ne4 Nxe4 18. Bxe4 g6 {=}) 17. Ne4 Nxe4 18. Qxe4 (18. Bxe4 g6 {+/=}) 18... g6 {=} 19. Red1 (19. Bb3 Rab8 20. Ne5 c5 21. dxc5 Qxc5 {=}) 19... Nd5 (19... Qe7 20. Qe2 {=/+}) 20. Rac1 Nf6 { Black threatens to win material: Nf6xe4} 21. Qe5 {White threatens to win material: Qe5xf6} Qe7 22. Ng5 Rd5 {Black threatens to win material: Rd5xe5} 23. Qe3 Rad8 (23... c5 $5 24. dxc5 Rc8 {=} (24... Qxc5 $4 25. Qxc5 Rxc5 26. Bxg6 { +-})) 24. Bb3 R5d6 25. Rc5 {White threatens to win material: Rc5xa5. Praise the rook!} Nd5 {Black threatens to win material: Nd5xe3. A valuable piece} ( 25... Ng4 26. Qe2 Nh6 {=} (26... Rxd4 27. Rxd4 Rxd4 28. Rxa5 {+/-})) 26. Qe2 Ra8 27. Nf3 (27. Ne4 Rdd8 {+/-}) 27... Qc7 (27... Nf6 28. Rcc1 {+/=}) 28. Rdc1 Qb6 (28... Nf6 29. Qe3 {+/=}) 29. Ne5 {+/-} Ne7 $2 (29... Qd8 {+/-}) 30. Nc4 { +-} Qa6 (30... Qc7 31. Nxd6 Qxd6 {+-}) 31. Rxa5 Qxa5 32. Nxa5 (32. Nxd6 $6 Bc8 {+-}) 32... Rxa5 33. Qe4 (33. Qe1 {might be the shorter path} Ra8 {+-}) 33... Nf5 34. Rd1 Ra8 35. Qe5 (35. g4 {and White wins} Ne7 36. f5 gxf5 37. Qe5 {+-}) 35... Rad8 36. Qc5 Nxd4 37. Rxd4 {White forks: b4+d6} (37. Qxb4 $5 R8d7 38. Kf1 {+-}) 37... Rxd4 {+/-} 38. Bc4 Ba8 $2 (38... b3 {+/= and Black can hope to survive}) 39. b3 {+-} Rd1+ 40. Kg2 Rc1 (40... Bb7 41. a5 {+-}) 41. Kh3 Rc2 42. f3 $4 {spoils everything} (42. a5 {+- and the result of the game is clear: White will win}) 42... Rd5 {! -+ Deflection: c4} 43. Qe7 (43. Bxd5 Rxc5 { Deflection Pinning}) 43... Rh5+ (43... Rh5+ 44. Qh4 Rxh4+ 45. Kxh4 Rxc4 46. bxc4 c5 47. f5 b3 48. fxe6 fxe6 49. Kh3 b2 50. g4 g5 51. Kg3 b1=Q 52. Kf2 Qd3 53. f4 gxf4 54. h3 Bf3 55. h4 Qe2+ 56. Kg1 Qg2#) 0-1