Speelman's Agony: English Botvinnik setups at club level

by Jonathan Speelman
3/1/2020 – This Agony and Ecstasy features some English games from an experienced club player from Wales, which GM JON SPEELMAN gives his usual pedagogic attention. As a bonus, Jon recorded a video version of his analysis. | Send in your own games! | Jon welcomes submissions from readers. If your games are selected for the Agony column, not only will you get free detailed commentary of your games by one of chess’s great authors and instructors, and former world no. 4 player, but you also win a free three-month ChessBase Premium Account!
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Agony & Ecstasy #117

This week's games are by Alan Llewellyn [pictured foreground with White] a Welshman who lives in Cumbria and writes:

Alan LlewellynI've played  chess seriously at the Barrow and Ulverston clubs since 1989. Being Welsh, I'm into rugby and my chess often resembles a rugby pitch after a long aggressive series of actions. I have played in the Isle of Man Masters and beaten some strong players including Keith Arkell online.

Alan's chess is rather up and down and of a number of games he sent me a couple were fairly disastrous but, at his best, he has an excellent feel for what needs to be done. 

I've chosen three, starting with a painfully quick loss in the Isle of Man against the Israeli IM and problem composer [and ChessBase contributor] Yochanan Afek. The other two are excellent wins in complicated middlegames. He provided some notes and assessments and I've added mine as 'JS'.

 
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MoveNResultEloPlayers
1.e41,166,62354%2421---
1.d4947,29855%2434---
1.Nf3281,60256%2441---
1.c4182,10256%2442---
1.g319,70256%2427---
1.b314,26554%2427---
1.f45,89748%2377---
1.Nc33,80151%2384---
1.b41,75648%2380---
1.a31,20654%2404---
1.e31,06848%2408---
1.d395450%2378---
1.g466446%2360---
1.h444653%2374---
1.c343351%2426---
1.h328056%2418---
1.a411060%2466---
1.f39246%2436---
1.Nh38966%2508---
1.Na34262%2482---
1.c4 Nf6 2.Nc3 g6 3.e4 d6 4.d3 Bg7 5.f4 e5 6.Nf3 Nc6 7.Be2
7...Nh5 JS A good move which puts pressure on White immediately and I imagine may have been prepared by Afek at home. 8.f5 This is the nornal reaction but here it doesn't work especially well. 8.fxe5 dxe5 8...Nxe5 9.d4 JS is nice for White 9.Nd5 was reasonable. When I started thinking about this properly I wondered about Nb8 but White probably gets an edge after Nb8 10.Bg5 f6 11.Be3 c6 12.Nc3 Nf4 13.Bxf4 exf4 14.d4 though this is unbalanced and I think it would be a decent punt for a strong player to try as Black. 8...gxf5 9.Nxe5? Again the normal reaction to a knight on h5 but with Qh4+ coming it's simply bad. 9.0-0= f4 10.Nxe5 dxe5 11.Bxh5 0-0 this is very pleasantly better for Black. 9.exf5 Bxf5 10.0-0 Bg6 JS gives some play for the pawn or 9...Bxe5 10.Bxh5 Qh4+ 11.Kf1 Be6
With White's pieces all over the place Black is already (close to) winning but Alan's next desperate move makes things worse. 12.g3?? Weakens the h3 square Bxg3! 13.Qf3! Be5? JS Apparently the engine gives Be1 but with would Black bother when Be5 is completely winning anyway. 13...Be1 14.exf5 Ne5 15.Qe2 Bxf5 16.Qxe1 Bxd3+ 17.Be2 Qh3+ 18.Kf2 Qf5+ 19.Kg1 Rg8+ 20.Qg3 Rxg3+ 21.hxg3 Bxe2 22.Nxe2 Qd3 and Black is nearly won. 14.exf5 Nd4! 15.Qxb7? It looked good at the time. Bxf5! Of course he plays the winning move here. 16.Qxa8+ Kd7 17.Qxa7 Bh3+
I resigned here as 18.Kg1 Rg8+ 19.Bg5 Rxg5+ 20.Bg4 Rxg4 is mate but he has the even simpler 18...Qe1+#. JS A horrible game for Alan against a very strong opponent who (probably in advance) found a very annoying idea against his pet line. If Alan had changed tack after 7...Nh5 by exchanging on e5 then he could have gotten a perfectly good game (as you'd definitely hope as White so early on). But he played the "normal" answer of f5 which was already a mistake and compounded the error with Nxe5? after which he was already in desperate trouble. 0–1
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Llewellyn,A1555Afek,Y22890–12014A16Isle of Man International Masters2
Llewellyn,A1634Buckell,D17301–02018A10Leyland Major (u170)3
Llewellyn,A1555Dobson,J17201–02020B07Cumbria South League6

Click or tap the second game in the list to switch

The aim of these Dvd's is to build a repertoire after 1.c4 and 2.g3 for White. The first DVD includes the systems 1...e5, the Dutch and Indian setups. The second DVD includes the systems with 1...c5, 1...c6 and 1...e6.

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Jonathan Speelman, born in 1956, studied mathematics but became a professional chess player in 1977. He was a member of the English Olympic team from 1980–2006 and three times British Champion. He played twice in Candidates Tournaments, reaching the semi-final in 1989. He twice seconded a World Championship challenger: Nigel Short and then Viswanathan Anand against Garry Kasparov in London 1993 and New York 1995.

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