Before I dwell on my losses from Hastings I’m attempting to cheer myself up by looking at a couple of more positive moments! They were lacking but there was the occasional spark. For a start I had a chance to play against the Dutch and chose to play 1 d4 f5 2 h3!? Nf6 3 g4!? which lead to a very interesting game against my friendly opponent M. Goodger.

I have just covered this line for my DVD, ‘Killer Dutch’ and thought that it would be a good chance to try it. I saw that Korchnoi had played it. I had also had a chance to play it and win against Korchnoi in a 3 minute game! Anyway let’s take a look at the game:

Replay the game

1 d4 f5 Whilst preparing for the game (I gave up on this process at various points in the tournament!) I saw that my opponent had the good sense to play the Classical Dutch and his results and understanding of the opening were good. For this reason I wanted to try something slightly different. 2 h3!?

The general idea of this move is to play g4 and attack Black on the light squares. It actually makes a lot of sense. Black has played 1…f5 exposing his light squares and king and now White wants to make him pay for that. This reminds me of 1 e4 c5 2 a3!? which is another favourite of mine, if you think about it, it is just the other way around! Like Alice in Wonderland…

2…Nf6 A very sensible reply, most moves are covered in my forthcoming DVD. In that DVD I actually recommend Black re-sacrificing with 2…d6 3 g4 e5 4 dxe5 Nc6!? which is very interesting. 3 g4!?

Continuing in wing gambit style, I believe that my opponent now played one of the most sensible replies. 3…d5!? I once had a game on ICC that continued 3…fxg4 4 hxg4 Nxg4 5 Qd3! an important idea in this opening. 5…Nf6??

My opponent was a Grandmaster (everyone has a bad day, or a bad week!) but after my next move he resigned? Can you spot the move? Anyway back to the game in question. 4 Nf3!? White obviously has other ways to continue but I felt like losing a pawn. 4…fxg4 The critical test, after the game my opponent thought that …e6 might have been a better idea. …e6 is safer but White can still aim to attack Black on the light squares after moves like c4, gxf5 and even Qb3.  5 hxg4 Bxg4

So what compensation does White have for the pawn? Well he has the open h-file and Black has weaknesses on g6 and e6. 6 Ne5 Bf5 7 Bh3!

I like this move. White wants to attack on the light squares so he must get rid of Black’s light squared bishop on f5. 7…e6 I was planning to meet 7…Qc8 with 8 Qd3!?

Which looks quite promising for White, for example, 8…Bxd3? 9 Bxc8 Ba6 10 Be6 and Ng6 is a nasty threat. 8 Bxf5 exf5 9 Qd3

This is an important idea in this variation and well worth remembering. The queen attacks the light squares and in some cases it might want to move out to b5. 9…Nc6 10 Bg5 rather than capturing my pawn back I wanted to keep up the pressure. 10…Qd6 11 Nc3!?

Developing as quickly as possible. This keeps Blacks king stuck in the middle. 11…Nxe5 12 dxe5 Qxe5 13 Bxf6 gxf6

This looks forced as 13…Qxf6 14 Nxd5 looked far too dangerous, for example, 14…Qf7 15 Qe3+ Kd8 16 0-0-0 with a lot of pressure. 14 Qb5+ Kf7 15 0-0-0

I have obviously gained a good position. Black’s king is weak and I should at least win my material back. 15…d4 This exposes Black on the light squares but it was hard to offer an alternative, for example, 15…Rd8 16 Nxd5! and White is doing very well. 16 Qc4+ Qe6 17 Qxc7+ Be7 18 Rxd4

I was feeling very confident here (which was an odd feeling this Hastings!) and should be winning. The game finished 18…Qc6 19 Qh2 Black’s king is weak so I wanted to keep the queens on the board. 19…h5 Black defends well considering the time trouble he was in, it is easy to fall apart in this position. 20 Rhd1 Rac8 21 Kb1 b5 22 R1d2

22…Kg6? The position was difficult but this allows my knight to enter the game. 23 Nd5 Bc5 24 Nf4+ Kf7 25 Rd7+ Kd8 26 Nxh5 Rg8

Martyn was down to his last 40 seconds here, not pleasant in the face of my attack. I now played 27 R2d6? which is probably good enough and Black lost on time. There was a more clinical finish that leads to mate by force. All with checks. Can you find the win? Answer in a couple of lines time…

27 Ng7+! was better, for example, 27…Rxg7 28 Qxh8 Bf8 29 Qh5+ Rf7 30 Qxf7++

I was obviously quite happy with the game and the way the opening had turned out. Well worth a try when you’re in an adventurous mood. My opponent was very nice and I caught up with him at the launch of my DVD where he actually purchased a copy. The DVD will be out soon we are just making a couple of small changes, anyway keep your eyes peeled!!

Ok that is all for now. I got awarded the best game prize for my last round game. I am not sure if this was out of sympathy for my abysmal result but it was a fascinating game which I will shortly make a video on.

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