Oh, well, sac anyway

As a contrast to yesterday's column full of Sturm und Drang, I thought I would share a recent game by Bill Wall. You can almost hear him humming a little tune as he plays his moves. You say that the Jerome Gambit goes well with a nice merlot?

Wall,B - Kamy
Chess.com, 2011

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 h6

The Semi-Italian Opening.

4.0-0 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.a4

Still waiting for ...Bc5, then Bxf7, writes Bill. 

6...Bd6

Oh, well, sac anyway.

7.Bxf7+ Kxf7

What does White have for his piece? Objectively, very little, just a collection of interesting possibilities: Black's unsafe King, the a2-g8 diagonal, the e8-h5 diagonal, a possible weakness at f6, the possibility of opening the f-file against Black's King... Nothing to get upset about.

8.Qe2 Re8  9.Qc4+ Kf8 10.Nh4

"Doctor" Wall diagnoses a certain leukopenia (weakness of the light squares, used by Hans Kmoch in his Pawn Power in Chess) in his opponent's position.

10...Ne7 11.d3

Black's move covers d5, f5 and g6, treating the leukopenia, but this in turn exacerbates possible problems along the f-file, including a potentially weak Knight on f6, which now lack's the Queen's support.

11...b6 12.f4 a5 13.fxe5 Bxe5

Voila! An open file targetting the Knight on f6.

Is Black still better? Feed the position to any computer and it will say "yes". Still, White continues to work on his attack-the-King ideas, because they just might turn into something useful...

14.d4 d5 15.exd5 Bd6 16.Bxh6

Grabbing a pawn.

Is Black still better? Feed the position to any computer and it will say "yes". Still, White continues to work on his attack-the-King ideas, because they just might turn into something useful...

[Oh, I guess I wrote that already.]

16...gxh6

Black still had the better choices of 16...Ba6 17.Nb5 Nexd5 18.Bg5 or 16...Kg8 17.Bg5 Ba6 18.Nb5 Nfxe5, in each case with a roughly even game.

17.Rxf6+ Kg7 18.Raf1 Ba6

This is the counterplay that Black has been counting on. It fails, which seems a bit unfair. How can Black be better for so long, and suddenly be worse?

The most straight-forward answer to that question is "the power of a bad move," but perhaps the following line would make defenders feel better: 18...Nf5 (giving back the piece) 19.Nxf5+ Bxf5 20.R6xf5 Qh4 (White's King has safety issues, too) 21.h3 Qg3 22.Qd3 Qh2+ (calling the tune for a few moves) 23.Kf2 Rf8 24.Ke1 Qxg2 25.Rxf8 Rxf8 26.Rxf8 Bxf8 (White could afford to give up a pawn to get the Rooks off of the board) 27.Qf5 Qg1+ 28.Ke2 Qxd4 29.Qg4+ Qxg4 30.hxg4 and Black is "only" down one pawn, with a Bishop vs White's Knight. However, he will still lose.

19.Nb5 Be5

This hastens the end, but Black's King was too unsafe to survive, in any event.

20.dxe5 Qxd5 21.Qg4+ Kh7 22.Rf7+ Kh8 23.Qg7 checkmate