GAME OF THE DAY
The second round of the World Junior Chess Championship in Petrovac continued to spoil the spectators with an abundance of exciting battles and upsets. My attention was drawn to the board 6 game played between the Armenian Grandmaster and current World Junior silver medalist Emin Ohanyan and a FIDE Master from Italy Vittorio Cina
The game started with the Giouco Piano – “the quiet game” but very quickly became anything but quiet. White opted for the fashionable 6. e5 line and for a long time the game was progressing along the reasonably well-trodden paths.
On move 12 White decided to deviate from the main theoretical line and opted for 12. Rc1 instead of Qc2.
However, this did not seem to catch Cina off guard as he continued to play quicky eventually amassing 1:34 on his clock after 14…f5. From that moment on it was clear that both players were on their own in a very non-standard and complicated position.
Black gained very good long-term strategic prospects but was faced with a necessity to find a lot of precise moves to fend of the attack. In particular, 17…h6 was a strong intermezzo which allowed Black to stay afloat.
A few moves later White went for a King walk inspired by his great compatriot Tigran Petrosian and managed to bring it to a complete safety on b1. After that the first critical moment of the game arose when Black was close to gaining a clear strategic superiority but first needed to safeguard his king, which was not an easy task.
22…Nh4! 23. Bxg5 Nf3 would have prevented all kinds of pawn breaks at an expense of a single pawn. The position would still have been unclear after that but in a real game most people would take Black in a heartbeat. Instead Vittorio opted for a more natural 22…Nf4 but Ohanyan was able to sense the hidden dynamism in the position and sacrificed a piece with a very inspired 23. f3! Ng2! 24. fxe4! Nxe3 25. Qd3.
Black was suddenly faced with a lot of threats and reacted in an understandable but suboptimal way. The best would have been 25…Rf3 26. exd5 cxd5 27. Bd1 Nxd1 28. Qxf3 Nxb2 with wild complications which naturally end in a draw after precise play. Instead, Cina decided to prevent Qh7+ at all costs and went for 25…Nxg4 26. exd5 Qf5. However, the resulting queenless position was unpleasant for Black.
The best chance would have been 29…Rf7! 30. Rcf1 Nh6 31. Rxh6 gxh6 32. Rxf7 Kh8, when Black should be able to hold the endgame with some precision. The Italian player decided to search for active counterplay instead, sacrificed the rook on a8 and activated all of his remaining pieces. Crucially the passed e-pawn survived though and that meant that Black`s threats were never enough to compensated for the material loss.
Emin eventually consolidated his forces and decided the game in his favour on move 40 with a nice but simple tactical shot.
1-0
