National Chess Congress 2008: Things Are Fine at First

Eric at a training session with Kasparov in 2005.

Vicary,Elizabeth - Liao,Eric [B40]
National Chess Congress 2008 (1), 28.11.2008

1.e4 c5

2.Nf3 e6

3.b3 So I play 3. Bb5 against 2... d6 and 2... Nc6, but obviously I can't do this after 2... e6. And while I don't know anything special about 3. b3, black never does either, and by now I've played it enough times that I think I'm getting a sense of the pawn structure.

3...Nc6 This is of course fine, but it allows me to get into what I know. Some black players try to avoid transposing back to Bb5 lines with 3...b6.

4.Bb2 d5 Probably it's not a bad move, but maybe it's unnecessarily early. In positions where white has already doubled black's c pawns with Bxc6, it can be risky to play d5 too soon because by fixing the pawn structure, black makes him pawns more obvious targets.

5.Bb5 I can take first, but I didn't see any reason to. Black isn't threatening to play d4 or take on e4: in the first case I take on c6 and put the b1 knight on c4; in the second I play Ne5 and his pawn structure is too much. I could also probably take on d5 and play d4.

5...a6

6.Bxc6+ bxc6

7.d3

7...Nf6

Black needs to immediately play ... f6 and ...e5 to shut out my Bb2. This kind of position is why I love the Bb5 Sicilian-- no kid will ever figure out the slightly weird positional ideas they need to find over the board.

8.Nbd2 Be7

9.0–0 0–0

10.Ne5 Black just doesn't really have a plan here.

10...Qc7

11.f4 Bd6

12.Rf3 I feel like I'm playing very childishly.

12...Rd8 Black should have played 12...Nh5, which is very annoying and forces 13.g3

13.Qe1 Bb7

14.Qh4 Be7

15.Rh3 h6

16.Qg3 Even better: 16.Ng4 Nxg4 (16...Qxf4 17.Nxf6+) 17.Qxg4 d4 18.Rxh6 Bf8 19.e5

16...Kf8

17.f5

Bd6 A better try for black is 17...Qa5 but then I can play 18.Nxf7: 18...Kxf7 19.Qg6+ Kf8 20.fxe6 Kg8 21.Rxh6 Rf8 22.Bxf6 Rxf6 23.Qh7+ Kf8 24.Qh8#

18.fxe6 fxe6

19.Ng6+ Ke8

20.e5 Be7

21.exf6 Qxg3

22.Rxg3 Bxf6

23.Be5 d4

24.Ne4 Bxe5

25.Nxe5 g5

26.Rf3 Rac8

27.Raf1 1–0

Immediately after this game I began to feel sick, so I took a bye in the evening round and slept and read the first half of Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, who write the brilliant Blink and The Tipping Point. This one is equally great. I'm going to go finish it now.