Abel Yap at The 2011 British Chess Championship!

GM Simon Williams.

Thanks to  my blog visitors who pointed out that a fellow Malaysian is playing at  The 98th British Championships which take place in Ponds Forge in Sheffield from 25th July to 6th August 2011.

The 21 years old player is Abel Yap Jinwei. Some of you may not no who Abel is but he was one of our national youth players during the early 2000's .

He was quite active back then and  i played with him in some local  tournaments  and one tournament  that i remember is  The 2005 Selangor Open.

However he was not seen in local tournament a few years later and  i guess  he must have been further studying in UK. I will try to contact him to get his latest development.

So far, Abel has score 2.5 points out of 6 and he will be in action in round 7 on Monday. (today is the rest day of the championship)

Meanwhile, below is  his game against GM Simon Williams (photo right) in round 3. Simon nickname is GingerGM and he has a nice website/blog here.

Abel Yap Jinwei (2029) - GM Simon Williams (2528)
British Chess Championship, Round 3, 27.7.2011

Analysed by Centaur (Hairulov+Houdini)

1.e4 c5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 g6 4. Nf3 Bg7 5. Bc4 Abel played the Grand Prick Attack of the Sicilian Defense. 5...e6 6. f5 Nge7 7. fxe6 fxe6 8. d3 d5 9. Bb3 b5 10. a4 b4 11. Ne2 Na5  

12.Be3 A sharp line here is 12.0-0  dxe4 13.Ng5!? sacrifice a pawn for initiative.

12...dxe4 13. dxe4 Qxd1+ 14. Rxd1 c4 15. Ba2 b3 16. cxb3 cxb3 17. Bb1 Bxb2 Black is a pawn up and he got a dangerous passed pawn on b file. However if white manage to regroup his piece, black's b-pawn can be capture safely.

18. Nfd4?! Stronger is 18. Bd3 With the idea of playing 19.Bb5+ and also clearing the b1 square for his rook to attack black's pawn. Play might continue with 18...Nec6 19. Rb1 Bf6 20.Ned4 and black's b-pawn will drop soon.    

18... Nec6 19. O-O Nxd4  20. Nxd4 Bd7 21. Nb5  again 21. Bd3 clearing the b1 square seems the best option.   

21... Bxb5 22. axb5 Nc4 23. Bc5 Ba3? Black give white a chance to have an active play.  Stronger is keeping the bishop with 23...Be5 

24.Bxa3! Nxa3 25. Rf3 Nxb5 26. Rxb3 a6 Black desperately try maintain his pawn up if not all his advantage will gone.  

27. Bd3 Nd4 27...Nc7 28.Rb7! With strong initiative.   

28. Ra3 28.Rb4! Is stronger for e.g 28...e5 29.Rf1! Not letting black from castling and then threatening Bxa6!   

28...Ke7 29. Rxa6 Rxa6 30. Bxa6

Abel has more or less equalized here. 30...Rd8 31. Kf2 Kf6 32. Rc1 Ra8 33. Bd3 Ra2+ 34. Ke3 e5 35. Rc7 h5 36. Rf7+ Kg5 37. Rf2 Ra3 38. Rb2 Kg4 39. Rb6 g5 40. Rg6 h4 41. h3+ Kh5 42. Rb6 Rb3  43. Ra6??

Abel unfortunately fall into a tactic.  Actually he can exchange the rook and play for a drawish endgame with  43. Rxb3 Nxb3 44. Be2+ Kg6 45. Bf3 Building a fortress. Although black's  knight is stronger here because white's pawn is in the same color with his bishop which make the white bishop passive,  however  black will found it hard to win because the pawns is more or less in the same side.   

43... Nc2+ ! 44. Kd2 Rxd3+! The sting on the tail.   

45. Kxc2? Actually white can offer better resistance with 45. Kxd3 Nb4+ 46.Kc4 Nxa6 47.Kd5 and black's e-pawn will drop. However with correct play, black is likely to win.

45... Rg3 46. Re6 Rxg2+ 47. Kd3 Rg3+ 48. Kc4 Rxh3 49. Kd5 Rh1 50. Kxe5 h3 51. Re8 Kg4 52.
Rh8 h2 53. Ke6 Kg3 54. Kf5 g4 0-1 White resign.

Black's pawn is much quicker.  A possible continuation is 54... g4 55. Kg5 Rb1 56. Rxh2 Rb5+ 57. e5 Rxe5+ 58. Kf6 Kxh2 59. Kxe5 g3 60. Kd6 Kg2 61. Kd5 Kf3 62. Ke5 g2 63. Kf5 g1=Q 64. Ke6 Ke4 65. Kd6 Qb6+ 66. Ke7 Kf5 67. Kd7 Qc5 68. Ke8 Ke6 69. Kd8 Qc4 70. Ke8 Qc8#

The official website is here 
Photo from 2011 British Chess Championship official website