My Experience in the 6th AAB Qatar Chess Open

I achieved a dismal 4 points out of 9. Well, I did learn quite a lot. First of all, that my French Defence is quite strong. I still have a lot to learn in the London system though I did have a miniature that made me feel good about it. Here it is. What was good about it was that I was just looking at a similar game recently and everything went according to plan!

(36) Doctorpip - Al-Janahi,Ibrahim [D02]

AAB Chess Open 6th Edition, 28.10.2022

1.d4 Nf6 2.Bf4 Many players of the London System prefer to start with 2.Nf3 but 2…c5 tends to be an irritating reply by black because [2.Nf3 c5 3.Bf4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Bxe5 Qa5+] and white loses a piece.

2...e6 3.e3 d5 4.Nd2 Be7 5.Bd3 0–0 6.Ngf3 Nbd7 7.h4 c5 8.c3 a6 Now that I have finished constructing my London Pyramid what next?

9.Ne5 This is the capital city of the London attack

9…Nxe5 Black could not suffer leaving that hydra in the center of the board.

10.dxe5 This capture removes the main defender of the king side.

10…Nd7 11.Qf3 c4 Now what?

12.Bxh7+! the interesting thing about this move is, when you load the game on Fritz it is not immediately recognized as a strong move. Give it a few moments and then suddenly the evaluation goes to +2

12…Kxh7 declining the Greek gift leads to mate

13.Qh5+ Kg8 At this point the player of black usually looks at the position and sees that white’s reinforcement knight is too far away to assist in the attack but then watch this:

14.Nf3 f6 15.Ng5!! anyway! So now white is 2 pieces down but the mating attack is more than enough compensation. Plus it’s loads of fun to play this position.

15…fxg5 16.hxg5 b5?? this is mate in 2 but [16...Bxg5 17.Bxg5 Qb6 18.0–0–0 Nxe5 19.Qh7+ Kf7 20.Rh6 Nd3+ (20...Qd6 21.f4 Ke8 22.fxe5 Qxe5 23.Rg6 Rf7 24.e4 Qxe4 25.Qg8+ Rf8 26.Qxg7 Rf7 27.Qg8+ Rf8 28.Qh7 Rf7 29.Rg8+ Kd7 30.Qxe4) 21.Rxd3 cxd3 22.Qg6+] also leads to fatal material loss for black.

17.g6 Black resigns

1–0

The game I plagiarised was this one:

(454967) Kovacevic,Vlatko (2510) - Ree,Hans (2520) [D02]

Maribor International Maribor (2), 24.10.1980

[mwash]

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 d5 [2...c5 3.Bf4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e5 5.Bxe5 Qa5+]

3.Bf4 e6 4.Nbd2 c5 5.e3 Be7 6.c3 0–0 [6...Nh5 7.Bxb8 Rxb8 8.Ne5 Nf6 9.Qa4+ Bd7 10.Qxa7]

7.Bd3 Nbd7 8.h4 b6 9.Ne5 Nxe5 10.dxe5 Nd7 11.Bxh7+ Kxh7 12.Qh5+ Kg8 13.Nf3 f6 14.Ng5 fxg5 15.hxg5 Rf5 16.Qh7+ Kf7 17.g6+ Ke8 18.Qxg7 Bf8 19.Qh8 Rg5 20.Qg8 Nxe5 21.Bxe5 Kd7 22.Rh8 Bb7 23.Qh7+

1–0