Neil
McDonald 2398 – Feliks Jerzy Kwiatkowski 2213
Hastings Challengers 2001/02
Round 3, 30th December 2001
Sicilian Defence, Pelikan Variation
In the summer of 1983, I went away house-sitting for a few weeks. For summer reading, I borrowed a club-mate's German translation of a Soviet tome on various lines of the Sicilian. The book included an exposition of the Pelikan, the theory of which had recently been enriched by Sveshnikov, Timoshchenko and others. I went through these lines out of idle curiosity and was instantly ravished by the beauty of the ideas behind the opening. I have been playing it on and off ever since. Of course, if you do not handle it properly, it is as if you were falling off a motorcycle at high speed, but when it works, it REALLY works. This is one of my better efforts with it.
Naturally, the game gave me immense personal satisfaction at the time, but I was not aware of the significance of the game. Nor was anybody else. It did not appear in the tournament bulletin – a pity, for it was a good game. Nor did it appear in the tournament report carried in "Chess" magazine – volume 67/No. 2 – May 2002, page 23. This is surprising for two reasons. First, the theme of 'elderly amateur bites grandmaster' is normally much beloved by the chess press. Second, the writer of the report could scarcely have been unaware of the game, for the writer was Neil McDonald himself. I wrote up the game for my county magazine, showed it to friends and, being just an amateur, put it in a dusty corner of my mind and moved on with my life.
Then, towards the end of 2003, the game J. Polgar – Gelfand, Budapest 2003, began to appear in various elements of the chess press – see for example Informant 87, game 132 and New in Chess 2003/5, page 19. Boris Gelfand made a draw and had some chances to do better. To my surprise, 17... Ne7 was marked as an innovation by Informant. To my further surprise, when I later logged on to the excellent www.chesscafe.com website, it was listed as one of the very best innovations of the volume. At this, a growing sense of irritation found expression. I fired off an e-mail of protest to the site. The site graciously contacted Informant, and the editor said that my game simply does not appear in any of the commercially available databases. Accordingly, I now cry to the world for recognition.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cd4 4. Nd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 e5 6. Ndb5 d6 7. Bg5 a6 8. Na3 b5 9. Bf6 gf6 10. Nd5 f5 11. c3 Bg7 [Black must not play 11... fe4? because then 12. Bb5! gives White an improved version of the piece sacrifice variation 11. Bb5.] 12. ef5 Bf5 13. Nc2 0-0 14. Nce3 Be6 15. Bd3 f5 16. 0-0 Ra7
[We have reached one of the most hotly debated theoretical positions of this variation. It is typical for the modern Pelikan. Black has the bishop pair, but White has firm control over d5. Black has a potentially mobile central and K-side pawn mass, but White has chances to fix and destroy it before it becomes a threat. Why play Ra7, by the way? Well, it's not my idea. It belongs to Kramnik. Black needs to challenge the Knight on d5 with Ne7 and to swing the queen's rook to f7 for attack. Black can't play 16... Ne7 at once because of 17. Ne7 Qe7 18. Bf5! and the R on a8 will fall to a fork on d5 if Black does not submit to the loss of a pawn. Don't laugh, but I fell for this one once – in a postal game! NO, I said DON'T laugh, IT'S NOT FUNNY.]
17. f4 [The man's move here is 17. a4, with Black then sacrificing a pawn for activity by 17... Ne7 18. Ne7 Re7 19. ab5 ab5 20. Bb5 d5. Black has compensation.]
17... Ne7! (a novelty)
And this is it! A few months later, when I wrote up the game for the 'Sussex Chess News', I gave my idea '!?' and commented: 'This is possibly new'. At the time I played the game I was unfamiliar with 17. f4. I had to sit still, grunt in Polish to myself under my breath and think from first principles what to do. I chose the move because, in my judgment, it was the move most in harmony with the demands of the position. Later, I went home and looked in one of the standard works, to find that only 17... e4 18. Bc2 a5= was known to respectable theory. I wondered if I had broken new ground, but suspected that the move must surely be known SOMEWHERE.
Twenty years back, when I introduced significant developments in the Grunfeld and the Pelikan, I had known exactly what I was doing, but this was a happy accident. Back to the game.
18. Bc2 [White prepares Bb3. Had he tried 18. Ne7 Re7 19. fe5, then I was prepared to play 19... Qb6!] 18... Nd5 19. Nd5 a5 20. a4
20... Rb7 [Here Gelfand had played 20... Qc8, but mentioned my idea as an interesting alternative.]
21. Bb3 Kh8 [The purpose here was to remove the threat of check, whether by Nf6 or along the a2-g8 diagonal. 17. f4 has not been a tearing success for White and I judged that my position was solid enough for a quiet move.] 22. Rf2 [White implicitly agrees that he has lost the initiative, but finds a useful grandmasterly move nevertheless. He defends b2, blocks checks along the a7-g1 diagonal and prepares Rd2.] 22... Qb8 23. Rb1 e4 [I assess this as rather better for Black because of the growing pressure along the b-file and the temporary irrelevance of White's mastery over d5.] 24. ab5 [This ought just to lose material but it is hard to suggest a constructive alternative.] 24… Rb5 25. Bc4
25... Rc5!?
[A key moment. I saw that I could just play 25... Bd5!, for if 26. Bd5 Bc3 wins material while 26. Bb5 Qb5 leaves Black with two bishops for a rook and a nasty e-pawn. So why didn't I play it? The answer lies off the board. McDonald was by this stage showing satisfying signs of imminent emotional collapse. His face was bright red and twitching and his poor, dear little eyes were darting desperately to and fro. He was also in modest time pressure. I had a possibly unjustified rush of confidence and judged that he was ripe for a stuffing. I decided that 25... Bd5 26. Bd5 Bc3 would relieve a lot of the emotional pressure by clarifying the position and giving him chances of white square counterplay, so I played to crack the man. Against a more steady opponent I would just have captured and played to soak up the pressure.]
26. Ba2 Qb7 [A horrible move to meet. It may be that White must dice with death by 27. Rd2 e3 28. Rd3 just to stay in the game.] 27.c4 [White cracks. This leads to the type of position known to the literature as excellent for Black. The square d5 is drained of all energy while the Black KB becomes a monster. Worse, the White KB is useless on a blocked diagonal.] 27… Bd5! 28. cd5 Qb4 [Threatening Bd4] 29. Re2 Rfc8 30. h3 Qd4 [I did not like to swap my active Q for his passive Q, but I needed to conquer the square c2 which it was guarding. Note that the White Queen has not moved even once.] 31. Kh2 Qd1 32. Rd1 Rc2 33. R1d2 Rc1 [The threats mount and it is not a shock that White misses one of them.] 34. g4?! Rf1 [Oopsie! If Black seizes the f4 square then Be5 will be on. Meanwhile if White tries 35. Rf2, then Black has 35... Ra1 with the double threat of e3 and Ra2.] 35. Rc2 Re8 36. gf5 Rf4 37. Rf2 [It may be that 37. Rc4 is more stubborn, but I am still confident of the result. After the move actually played, I saw how to win the b-pawn. I swear that around here I could feel my late father and paternal grandfather standing over me, telling me to fight like a good Pole and urging me forward.] 37... Rf2 38. Rf2 e3 39. Re2
39... Bb2! [If 40. Rb2 e2.] 40. Bc4 Bc3
[The time control has been reached. Black's passed pawns are massive, while the White pawn on f5 is irrelevant. It remained 'only' to keep my nerve.] 41. Rc2 Bd4 42. Be2 a4! 43. Ra2 [43. Rc4 Be5 with the idea Ra8 is nasty.] 43... Ra8 44. Kg2 a3 45. Kf3 Kg7 [Here I calculated the final simplifying sequence.] 46. Ke4 Bb2 [You might think that this is quite degrading enough for a Grandmaster, but just you watch. Worse things are coming.] 47. Ke3 Re8! [Here White paused for a while to think, but it's too late.] 48. Kd2 Re2! 49. Ke2 Kf6 50. Kd3 Kf5 51. Rb2 ab2 52. Kc2 Kg5 53. Kb2 Kh4 54. Kc3 Kh3 0 : 1
[This was the cheekiest of the winning options, for I had calculated that the White King cannot win the d-pawn. Here, McDonald contemplated the ruins briefly, and resigned. This was my second win against a Grandmaster who held the title at the time of the game. Both wins were with Black and both games were played in my Sussex, the county of my birth.]