An Historical Win

From time to time, I need to remind myself how to embed games into a Blogger post and so here I am again. This game I played in October of 1981 on the occasion of a match between two clubs, one of which (Rooty Hill) I belonged to at the time. I was lucky enough to win. It's a comedy of errors on both sides really once you analyse the moves carefully. I've added some annotations based on the Stockfish Engine suggestions.

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Move	N	Result	Elo

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1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Qe2 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.Rd1 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Qc7 12.d5 Bg4 The best approach for Black is to reposition the Knight on f6 to b6 via d7 13.Nbd2 It's recommended that White play h3 to drive off the Bishop and then play b3 followed by c4. Nb7 Recommended here is the Knight manouvre h5 to f4, striking at the Queen and establishing a strong outpost. 14.Nf1 c4 15.Ng3 Nc5 16.h3 Bc8 Bd7 would seem preferable here, although the plan is to position the Bishop on b7 presumably. 17.Be3 The best here seems to be b4 to drive the Knight away. If the pawn is taken en passant then there is still a pawn on b3 that can be moved to b4 to drive the Knight away. Rd8 18.Rd2 Ncd7 19.Ng5 Nf8 20.f4 exf4 This definitely seems to be a mistake because it allows a Knight to later settle on d4. Best is still the Knight manouvre to f4 via h5. 21.Bxf4 Ng6 22.Be3 Ne5 23.Nf3 Nfd7 24.Qf2 Nxf3+ 25.gxf3 Re8 26.Nf5 Bf8 27.Qg3 Ne5 28.Nd4 Qd8 29.Rg2 Qf6 Advancing the pawn to g6 would be the best way to blunt White's attack. 30.Bg5 Qg6 31.f4 This is actually a blunder as White's previous advantage evaporates. However, Black does not take advantage of it by playing 31...f6. Nd3 This move is inexplicable and completely disastrous as White completely regains the initiative. 32.f5 Bxf5 If 32...Qh5, then 33.Bd1 traps the Queen. 33.exf5 Qh5 34.Bxd3 34.Bd1 doesn't work now because of 34...Re1+ but the recommended move is 34.Rf1 preparing to snare the Queen. However, Black would then have had time to manouevre the Knight to e4 via c5 to attack the White Queen. cxd3 35.Qxd3 h6 36.Bf4 The far more aggressive 36.Bf6 is needed here. Qh4 37.Rg4 Re1+ 38.Rxe1 Qxe1+ 39.Qf1 Qe7 40.Bxh6 Qf6 41.Bg5 Qe5 42.f6 Re8 43.Ne6 43.fxg7 is crushing but this Knight move is far less effective. Qxd5 Black should close up the position with 43...g6. 44.Nxf8 Qc5+ 45.Qf2 Re1+ 46.Kg2 Qd5+ 47.Kg3 Qd3+ 48.Kh4 Re2 49.Qd4 Qf5 Black should have exchanged Queens here. 50.fxg7 f6 51.Qxf6 Engine stockfish-8-64 1–0

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White	EloW	Black	EloB	Res

Sean

-

Lazaridiz

-

1–0

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I remember the prelude and the sequel to the match well. There were three other team members in a car that was being driven to the venue. One of the members was a Englishman with a thick Lancashire or similar accent. He worked as a plumber. We must have talking about what jobs each of us had and when he learned that I was a working as a psychiatric nurse at the time, he was not shy about expressing his disbelief that a man (a "real" man I guess he meant) could work in such a job. I could feel the two others cringe as he said this but I didn't get annoyed and went on to explain that males were necessary in psychiatric hospitals because sometimes patients became physically violent. He kept on mumbling about this till we go there. As it turned out, I was the only team member to win out of the eight who competed on the night. Another team member drew his game, so the final score was 1.5 to 6.5. Returning home in the same car, this guy was reluctant to give me credit for scoring the only win of the night. I never saw this guy again but I well remember him just because he was so unapologetically rude.

Figure 1 shows a copy of the original score sheet. It's surprising that it's survived after almost forty years.

Figure 1

Of course, it was played so long ago that's the moves are recorded in the old notational system that I grew up with and with which I'm still more comfortable with. Anyway, the algebraic system replaced it and that's that. There's a couple of moves on the other side of the sheet but I'll only show the first page here. In the sixties and early seventies, I used to play correspondence chess but none of those games survive.