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Chessville
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Game of the Week August 5th, 2003 We had another week with strong female representation, as 3 strong women came to play. German IM and WGM Elisabeth Paehtz was in the mix again, hoping to repeat her nice performance from the previous week. Georgian, now Dutch WGM Tea Bosboom-Lanchava decided to play once more before leaving NYC, and hoped to have a strong performance. Meanwhile the quickly improving Laura Ross was in the field and ready to do some serious damage, as evidenced by her 3.5/4 score on Thursday night. She always performs well on Tuesdays and Thursdays and had all the wannabe qualifiers crying foul, as when she routinely scores 3.5 or 3 points, no one else has a chance to play. Because of these facts combined with the fact that her rating is soon to be over 2200, the NY Masters has made an executive decision to grant her an honorary masters title, and allow her to play on Tuesdays when she desires. If she continues her typical results in this tournament, the master title should not even be one month away! The top dog in the field was the tournament stalwart, GM Leonid Yudasin. He hoped to cool the heels of last week’s surprise champion, Gregory Braylovsky. This wouldn’t be an easy task if Braylovsky plays with the same ferocity that he displayed in his final round victory over Alex Stripunsky last week...Lets cut to the action! Participant List for 67th NY Masters
Now the key matchup of the tournament…..Braylovsky with the white pieces against Yudasin. Braylovsky is a fast player, but it’s nearly impossible to match the speed of Yudasin….let’s see if he could... (3) Braylovsky,G (2386) - Yudasin,L (2682) [B43] [Click here for an interactive JavaScript board] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 a6 5.Nc3 Qc7 6.g3 b5 7.Bg2 Bb7 8.0-0 b4 9.Nb1 Nf6 10.Re1 d6 11.c3 bxc3 12.Nxc3 Be7 13.Be3 Nbd7 14.Rc1 Qb8 15.Nb3 Bd8 16.Qd2 0-0 17.Red1 Bc7 18.h3 Rd8 19.g4
Braylovsky was down about 10 minutes on the clock already……not a great spot to be in against Yudasin…. 19...Ne5 20.Bg5 Ng6 21.Bxf6 gxf6 22.Ne2 I have to say I am impressed with Braylovsky’s last few moves. Already he has a clear attacking plan of Ne2-g3-h5. Meanwhile black’s pieces are chilling over on the queenside….Yudasin decides to break in the center!22...d5
23.Nc5! A very strong reply! Yudasin clearly overlooked that after 23…dxe4, white has to strong rejoinder, 24.Nd7! attacking the queen and the f6 pawn! 23…dxe4 24.Nd7! Rxd7 Out of desperation, Yudasin sacrifices the exchange and hopes his bishops will provide ample compensation.25.Qxd7 Bb6 26.Rd6 Qa7
27.Rxb6!? A very interesting sacrifice, allowing the rook on c1 to invade on c7. 27….Qxb6 28.Rc7 Ne5 29.Qe7 Bc6 30.Nf4 Re8 31.Qd6 All of the sudden Yudasin has run out of good moves. However Braylovsky is already under five minutes on the clock where Yudasin had about 16 or 17. Yudasin now tries to do whatever he can to complicate Braylovsky’s task, but if Braylovsky’s nerves can hold he has great chances to knock off the Grandmaster and move to a perfect 3-0 score.31...Qxb2
32.Rxc6 Winning two pieces for the rook. Things are looking very pleasant for Braylovsky…. 32….Nxc6 33.Qxc6 Rd8 34.Qxe4 Qxa2 35.Nh5 Qa1+ 36.Bf1 Qe5 37.Qf3 f5 38.g5 Now the knight will become entrenched on f6. Yudasin now plays many fine and quick moves that complicate the issue. 38….h6 Yudasin is doing whatever he can to ensure that the knight doesn’t have a permanent home on f6. 39.Nf6+ Kg7 40.Qh5 Rh8
All of the sudden white’s pieces are looking like they will soon be pushed backwards. Meanwhile Braylovsky was down to about 2 minutes on the clock. Would he be able to keep control of the position or would Yudasin’s speed and trickery prevail? 41.h4 Qf4 42.Bxa6 hxg5 43.Qxg5+ Qxg5+ 44.hxg5 Kg6 45.Nd7 Kxg5
Already a huge victory for Yudasin. An endgame has been reached in which white has no chances to win, but decent chances to lose. I believe it should be a draw with best play, however with one minute left on the clock, in such a high pressure game, it would be not be easy… 46.Ne5 Rh7 47.Kg2 f6 48.Nd3 Rc7 49.Ne1 e5 50.Bd3 e4 51.Bb5 Rc1 52.Kf1 f4 53.Bd7?
Its gone from great for white, to completely hopeless. White had to try Ke2, as after 53….f3, the king and knight cannot ever move again. 53...f3 54.Be6 Kf4 55.Bd5 Ke5 56.Bb7 f5 57.Ba6 Kd4 58.Bb7 Kc3 0-1
There is no hope for Braylovsky anymore, as the king is
coming to d2, picking up the knight. To save him from thinking too much,
Yudasin called Braylovsky’s flag at some point after this move. A sad game
for Braylovsky and he had such great chances to pull off another huge upset,
and another reason why Yudasin scores so well in this event. Even when he
has a bad position, he always knows how to get the best practical chances
from it. Return to the New York Masters Index
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