BtM 27A: Into the valley of chess

July 1988, Position C

White to play

Rohde - Whitehead US Championship 1987

Contributions to the comments box are welcome. I’ll reply with what the Masters have to say about their choice to anybody who suggests a move.

Scroll down to see some commentary from me and the Masters’ feedback.

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Alternatives to the right of us, alternatives to the left of us ….

In contrast to BtM 26, in today’s position there’s no end of moves that leave White with a decent, probably winning, game.

I gave HIARCS a little while to think of it and at 20 ply it spits back at least 15 moves which it thinks are +1.5 or better*. Including such gems as 1 Bd2 and 1 Bd1.

Which, I mention en passant, just goes to show that you have to be careful when analysing with computers. They’ll tell you a price of a move but not its value.

Or maybe I’m just a bit crosspatch because none of those 15 moves are the one I chose.

Norwood: "1 Rxd6. Nice and easy."

Levitt: "1 Rxd6. Looks winning."

I spent nearly all my time on the exchange sac.

BOTTERILL: "1 Rxd6?! only works if Black takes it …."

My engine begs to differ, George, but anyway even I worked out that 1 … Bxe4 is the critical response.

As is often the case, my choice of what is essentially a decent move was based on a miscalculation. Here’s the key line. White is definitely winning at the end of it, but there’s an enormous tactical hole. As a visualisation exercise can you see it?

1 Rxd6 Bxe4, 2 Rd4 Bxb4, 3 Rxe4 Bd6, 4 Rxe5 Bxe5, 5 Bg4+ Kd8, 6 Rxb8+ Ke7, 7 Rxb7+ +-

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POINTS

10: Bxd6

8:  Rxd6

5:  c4, Ba3

2:  Bc3, f3

MASTERS

Bxd6: Plaskett, Flear, P. Littlewood, Pein, Botterill, Horner

Rxd6: Norwood, Levitt, Howell, J. Littlewood, S. Arkell

c4:   Conquest

Ba3:  Martin

Bc3:  NOVAG Super Expert

SOURCE

Bxd6 Rohde - Whitehead, US Championship 1987

* This very concrete description with its very specific numbers - 15, 20, 1.5 - is very much the parlance of our times. I was going to continue with 'in the old days we’d have said …." but there is no equivalent. We just didn’t have the same chess language back then.