64 square madness that some of us call chess...: B33 Sicilian: Pelikan and Sveshnikov Variations (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.a4 a6 8.Na3)

B33 Sicilian: Pelikan and Sveshnikov Variations (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.a4 a6 8.Na3)

The game I am sharing today was played in a team match called TMCL 2016 Sub-Div. WL1 R3. It was played between Battle For Victory and TribaL KnighTs on 100 boards at Chess.com. I played on board 52 for Battle For Victory and won both my games against Zalan10 on time. The first sign of trouble for Zalan10 was when he or she played 11...Rc8. I replied with the move 12.Bg5, which pinned the knight to the queen and discouraged my opponent from playing d5, because it would lose a pawn. Zalan10 then played the natural looking developing move 12...Be7, which gave the opportunity to my opponent to move the knight, in case he or she would have wanted to do so.

Zalan10 should have played 11...d5 and improve the scope of the dark-squared bishop and get rid of the possibly weak pawn at d6.

I should have then played 13.Bxf6, in order to prevent the move d5 and also to make sure that knight could jump to d5 without the possibility for it to be immediately challenged. I instead castled, which was a decent move, but not the most accurate one. Nor was the continuation that followed it. Zalan10 played 13...h6, which gave me another chance to take the knight on f6 with my bishop and jump with my knight to d5, but because I still preferred my bishop to Zalan10's knight, I simply retreated with the bishop to e3. Even though I should know by now that I should more often than not, to go with the aggressive move instead of the passive alternative, I almost always go with the passive one. The blunder that decided the outcome of the game was seen on move 16, when Zalan10 played Qd7.

The move that Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT suggests in this position at depth 34 is 16...Nxd5. In that way Zalan10 could have still fought for the draw.

The rather obvious problem with Zalan10's move 16...Qd7 was that I could reply with the move 17.Nb6, which forked the queen and the rook. After I had won the exchange, the game was quite easy to play and I never gave my opponent a chance to get back into the game.

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Move	N	Result	Elo

Replay and check the LiveBook here

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e5 6.Ndb5 d6 7.a4 a6 8.Na3 B33 Sicilian: Pelikan and Sveshnikov Variations Bg4 9.Be2 Bxe2 10.Qxe2 Nd4 11.Qd3 Rc8 11...d5 12.0-0 dxe4 13.Nxe4 Be7 14.Bg5 0-0 15.Bxf6 Bxf6 16.Nc4 Rc8 17.Rad1 b5 18.axb5 axb5 19.Ne3 b4 20.c3 bxc3 21.bxc3 1/2-1/2 (21) Basas Gamazo,J (1973)-Prat Llables,J (2144) Barcelona 2016 12.Bg5 Be7 13.0-0 h6N 13...Nd7 14.Be3 Nc5 15.Qd2 0-0 16.f3 Nce6 17.Nd5 f5 18.exf5 Nxf5 19.Bf2 Bg5 20.Qd1 Qe8 21.c3 Qf7 22.Nc2 Rfd8 23.g3 h5 24.Qd3 h4 25.Rad1 hxg3 26.hxg3 Nc5 27.Qc4 Ne6 28.Qe4 Dragiev,V (2422)-Nedev,T (2476) Struga 2002 1-0 (42) 13...0-0± 14.Be3 White threatens to win material: Be3xd4 14.Bxf6!? Bxf6 15.Nd5± 14...Nc6 White has an active position 14...d5!?= is worth looking at 15.Nd5± 0-0 15...Nxd5 16.Qxd5 Qd7 17.c3± 16.c3 16.Nb6 Rc7 17.Rfd1± 16...Qd7? 16...Nxd5 and Black has air to breath 17.Qxd5 Qc7 17.Nb6+- Qg4 18.Nxc8 Rxc8 19.f3 Qh5? 19...Qe6+- 20.Nc4 b5 20...Ne8+- hoping against hope 21.axb5 axb5 22.Nb6 Rb8 23.Qxb5 Nd8 24.Ra8 Rxa8 25.Nxa8 Kh7 25...Ne6 cannot undo what has already been done 26.Nb6+- 26.Nc7 Ne6 26...Qg6 is not the saving move 27.Ra1+- 27.Nxe6 27.Nxe6 fxe6 28.Qc6+- 1–0

White	EloW	Black	EloB	Res

Vierjoki,T

1843

Zalan10

1373

1–0

Some of the highest rated games that reached the position after 8.Na3 can be seen below.