DATCC Round 8

Below is my game against Soo Wai Cheong in the 8th round of DATCC Team League held last Wednesday ( 1oth June 2009). My team Nusa Mahkota Chess Club were trashed 0-4 by the leader - SMS Gold. Our early guess that we could "steal" some points due to the absentees of their top players ( FM Mok Tze Meng and Ismail Ahmad played in Penang Open) were wrong. In fact their reserve which consist MSSM players didn't left us even a half point .

Soon Wai Cheong (SMS Gold) - Hairulov ( Nusa Mahkota Chess Club) [B00]
DATCC Team League (Round 8), 10.06.2009

Analyzed by Hairulov and Fritz 11

Due to some positional mistake in the middle game, i was down a pawn and had a bad pawn structure ( double f-pawns). White has large advantage especially his pawn majority b3-c3-d4 versus b6. However during the game, i found a nice idea to create a passed pawn on the king side with...

40... f4+! 41.gxf4 if black neglect his duty to protect the d4 pawn with 41.Kf3 then 41...fxg3 42.fxg3 Nb4 and white will lost his d4 or c3 pawns !

41...Nf5+? Before playing my 41st move, i considered two option :-

i) the move i played 41...Nf5+ and;

ii) 41...gxh4

I mainly calculated 41...Nf5+ and reject 41...gxh4 because i taught doubling my passed pawn on king side would be a mistake. However after the game, my friend "Fritz" told me that in fact 41...gxh4!! could have save me the game. For e.g

a) 42.Ne1 h3 43.Nf3 Nf5+ 44.Ke2 Kd6 45.Kf1 Kd5 46.Nd2 b5 47.Kg1 b4 48.cxb4 Nxd4 49.Kh2 Ne6 and black has excellent chance to draw ;

b) 42.Kf3 Nb5 and black c3 pawn will drop

42.Ke4 ?! 42.Kf3 is correct 42...Nxh4? I missed another chance to save the game with 42...Nd6+ 43.Kf3 gxh4 44.Kg2 Nb5 43.fxg5 fxg5 44.Ne5! This knight control many important square whereas my knight at h4 block my passed pawn 44...Ke6 45.d5+ Kf6 I decide to abandon my queen side completely and hope that my passed pawn on king side can create something 46.Nd7+ Kg6 47.Nxb6 Nf5 48.Nc4 h4 49.Ne5+ Kf6 50.Ng4+ Kg6 51.c4 h3 52.c5 Nh6 the last trick which i learned a lot from my friends from 786 chess club which was...

53.Nh2! not successful this time :). Of course taking the knight with 53...Nxh6?? would be a terrible blunder because of 54...h2 and black win 53...Kh5 54.c6 White is much quicker 54...Ng4 55.Nxg4! white correctly decide to enter the winning continuation 55...Kxg4 56.c7 white will promote with check for e.g 56...h2 57.c8=Q+ Kh4 58.Qh8+ Kg4 may be i should try to play this line hoping for (59.Qxh2 stalemate) but i trust my opponent :) 59.Kd4! Kf5 no more stalemate 60.Qxh2 1-0 Black resign