Zander’s road to GM – 1

This was an online game where Zander had a fantastic win against a GM! We start at move 14.

White managed to block off the attack on his king with a4 with black still trying to push by playing c5 and c4. This led to doubled pawns on the C file but they’re fine whilst being protected by the two knights and the bishop also helping create a solid king defense.

h4 allows a simple trap of the bishop but also means that if black castles there’s a ready attack to break open the position. There’s also nice ideas of f4 to support the knight on e5 and then even f5 can come later if black does castle to bust the king wide open.

There was a flurry of exchanges around move 18 which simplified the position, this was initiated by black but seemed to favour white with the weak pawn on the a file.

Black castling seemed dubious with the aforementioned pawns in a solid formation ready to attack. He managed to recapture the pawn, but it resulted in a weak e pawn. This meant that white was happy simplifying the position to what should be a won end game.

31 Re1 would have been better to then move up to e5 as it would have been more active defense of the pawn and attacking a5, but the position was still +2.2.

34 b4 is an attempt at forcing an additional passed pawn with the king in support. The check fails as it allows the king to progress further up the board.

Black seems to allow white to capture the b4 pawn, however, if it’s pushed and exchanged on b3, whilst the rook looks good, the a pawn is way too powerful and any attempts to stop the march drops the f pawn with some nasty skewers picking up the rook and leaving a centralised king.

Whilst the king was able to get back to a8, the c pawn also provides enough of a threat that it forces black to try to make things happen which just leaves too many opportunities.

The engine doesn’t like white defending the backwards c pawn, but it does keep a nice umbrella stopping the black rook from providing any real defense against the a pawn.

An excellent solid performance, followed by a win against a NM with a ladder checkmate with all 4 rooks still on the board. An impressive tournament, well done Zander.