My Simultaneous Exhibition Game Against the Two-time World Blitz Champion GM Valentina Gunina (Part 1)

 My Simultaneous Exhibition Game Against

the Two-time World Blitz Champion 

GM Valentina Gunina (Part 1)

 

(by Yury V. Bukayev)

 

Dear readers, now I'd like to tell you about my recent ultra-sharp game against the super chess star of the modern time GM Valentina E. Gunina in her 14-board simultaneous exhibition in Moscow. The official report about this event ( https://moscowchess.org/news/18681 ) is of minimum length, but you can find one official photo in it.

Wikipedia starts to indroduce the maestro so:

" Valentina Evgenyevna Gunina (Russian: Валентина Евгеньевна Гунина; born 4 February 1989) is a Russian chess grandmaster. She is the two-time Women's World Blitz Chess Champion (2012 and 2023), has won the Women's European Individual Chess Championship three times (2012, 2014, 2018), and has won the Russian Women's Championship five times (2011, 2013, 2014, 2021, 2022). She was a member of the gold medal-winning Russian team at the Women's Chess Olympiads of 2010, 2012, 2014, at the Women's European Team Chess Championships of 2007, 2009, 2011, 2015, 2017, 2019 and at the Women's World Team Chess Championship of 2017. Gunina won the 2016 London Chess Classic Super Rapidplay Open in one of the best performances or victories for a woman at a top-level chess tournament, defeating several top 100 grandmasters along the way ".

What chances do we have against such opponent in 2025? Hmm...

Very unfortunately for me, the following two circumstances caused dear arbiters to set a chess clock on my board (simultaneously with other boards) after White's 19th move on my board already. Thus, firstly, the simultaneous exhibition started approximately in 19:00 (instead of planned 18:15), although its necessary finish was in 20:00. Only one hour for 14 boards - it is a terrible fact! Of course, arbiters prepared clocks in the box, as the following photo demonstrates.

And secondly, since the very beginning dear maestro renunciated orally to accept my opening moves as immediate responses after her moves. So my game was played with the ordinary velocity, according to maestro's solution.

      GM Valentina E. Gunina - Yury V. Bukayev

          simultaneous exhibition, Moscow, 2025,

            August 16 ('The Chess Square 2025')

 

1.е4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 0-0 6.0-0 d5 7.exd5 Nxd5 8.Re1 Nb6 9.b4 Bd6 10.Bb3

The following photo demonstrates the moment when maestro is making her 10th move. 

I think, my play after maestro's 10th move started to be psychologically provocative: I started to search a possibility to make a psychological blow ...Nc6xb4 with further capturing of the Rook on a1, after c3xb4, with an ultra-sharp play and without my easy loss after it. It was enough risky plan, but it can work well in many cases...

10...a6 11.Nbd2 Bg4 

The following photo demonstrates the moment when the 11th move is made.

12.Ne4 Be7 13.Ng3 Bf6 14.h3 Bxf3 15.Qxf3 Nxb4 16.cxb4 

16...e4 17.Nxe4 Bxa1 18.Bg5 Qd4 19.Qf5?

 

This moment chess clocks were set near boards, with 20 minutes for White and with 2 minutes for Black only! Only 2 minutes for this early middlegame - what a terrible fact! Here I spent more than a minute, but found the best response, fortunately.

 

19...Rae8!

 

I offered a draw to maestro in this ultra-sharp position (with my material advantage) which is enough near to even ( "+0.7" according to Stockfish 17.1 program, for example, as I found after the game), and I said that I'll lose on time if a draw isn't accepted. She listened my words, but declined my offer with her words which mean that she is fighting for a win without her sympathy with my bullet time situation. No sympathy with my situation, no acceptance of my offer... I became sad.

                                       (to be continued...)