[Event "Leeds League Division 1"]
[Site "Rose Forgrove, Leeds"]
[Date "2010.09.29"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Letton, R."]
[Black "Shapland, D."]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "150"]
[BlackElo "148"]
[Annotator "Shapland,David"]
[PlyCount "90"]
[EventDate "2010.??.??"]
[WhiteTeam "Alwoodley"]
[BlackTeam "Leeds"]
[TimeControl "240+2"]

1. e4 {The opening in this game was fairly inauspicious: a quiet line of the
Bishop's Opening. Don't be fooled by these early exchanges however, this game
develops in a maelstrom of complexity and lunacy! This being the case I will
skip through the opening moves of the game reasonably swiftly as there is
plenty to say about the latter parts of it.} e5 2. Bc4 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. d3 Be7
{4...Na5 immediately was better. Also frequently played and respectable are 4..
.Bb4 and 4...Bc5. I can't remember what influenced my choice here. Probably I
was still hoping the game would transpose into a position I was more familiar
with which, had my opponent here played 5.Nf3, I would have gotten just what I
wanted. Of course, White has other ideas.} 5. f4 {This is a thematic idea in
the Bishops Opening. By not developing his king's knight on move 2, White has
left himself the opportunity open to play this aggressive advance.} d6 6. f5 {
This move surprised me a little. It's by no means bad but, checking up on the
opening theory afterwards, I found that 6.Nf3 is the most frequently played
move here. I think 6.Nge2 is also interesting.} Na5 {Now that there's no hope
of transposing back into a more orthodox Italian Game I started to think a bit
more creatively and decided to eliminate White's king's bishop.} 7. Nf3 Bd7 {
Fritz prefers...} (7... c6 8. Qe2 O-O 9. O-O d5 {... and awards Black a small
advantage after this.}) 8. Qe2 Nxc4 9. dxc4 g6 {Having succeeded in pulling my
opponents d-pawn away from the centre my plan here was to undermine his pawn
chain further and leave myself with a nice, solid central pawn majority. White
would probably do best to exchange on g6 here just in order to enable himself
to keep a pawn on e4. Instead he makes a highly commital move.} 10. O-O {
Looking back at this game afresh after nearly 10 years I'm amazed that my eyes
didn't light up here. It seems completely natural for Black to now exchange
pawns on f5 and play Rg8-Bc6-Qd7 and 0-0-0. The attacking potential looks
fantastic. Why didn't play this in 2010? Maybe I was still feeling a bit
uncomfortable about the opening set up. I've no idea but my next move
demonstrates that my game wasn't in great shape at the time of this encounter.}
O-O $2 {White should really gain an advantage after this move.} (10... gxf5 {
gives Black a small edge according to Fritz.} 11. exf5 Rg8 (11... Bxf5 {would
be a mistake as after...} 12. Nxe5 Be6 13. Bg5 {... White is pretty much
winning.}) 12. a4 Qc8 13. g3 Bc6 {This looks good for Black. He probably won't
castle long now but the king can even hide on d7 or f8 if it needs to.}) 11.
Be3 {My engine prefers...} (11. Bg5 Re8 12. Rad1 b6 {... and White is better.})
11... a6 {My play in this game really seems rather querilous. It feels like I
was low on confidence perhaps. I've no idea why.} 12. Rad1 Qc8 13. Bg5 {13.Bh6
is also good.} Bc6 14. Nd5 $2 {This loses a pawn although White will get some
counter play for it. Instead of this, the engine says it was time for White to
break the tension on the f-file and open the position with...} (14. fxg6 fxg6
15. Bh6 Re8 16. c5 {Here, White's lead in development and Black's slightly
less secure king are the basis for White's advantage.}) 14... Bxd5 15. cxd5
gxf5 $2 {An extraordinary decision! I'm sure I was thinking that I'd be able
to play Kh8-Rg8 and get an attack on the White king. That did not transpire to
be a vain hope but only because White let the opportunity for a big advantage
slip through his fingers. How inconsistent of me though to play so slowly and
over cautiously and then suddenly switch to naked aggression. A lack of
patience perhaps. It certainly wasn't one of my virtues, some would say it
still isn't. A better try would have been...} (15... c6 16. c3 cxd5 17. Bxf6
Bxf6 18. Rxd5 {... although White is still in the box seat here.}) 16. exf5 {
Missing a big chance in the form of. ..} (16. Nh4 $1 {After this White quickly
builds up a very promising attacking position after, for example...} Nxd5 17.
Rxf5 Nf4 18. Rxf4 Bxg5 19. Rg4 {... with a winning advantage.}) 16... Qxf5 {I
probably didn't realise that I'd been let off the hook and imagine that this
was the only line both players considered correctly in their calculations.} 17.
Bxf6 Qxf6 18. Nd2 {Unbelievable! White goes from being better to being worse
in one move, and all because he didn't find...} (18. Nd4 $1 {White gathers
significant momentum from here.} Qg6 19. Nf5 Bg5 20. h4 $1 {Black's bishop
can't leave the d8-h4 diagonal on account of the knight fork on e7.} Bd8 (20...
Bf6 $4 {Lands the queen in very hot water after...} 21. h5 Qg5 22. Rd3 Kh8 23.
Rg3) 21. Rd3 {Looks extremely dangerous for Black.}) 18... Qg6 {Now Black has
the better of the game. If you're expecting a stable advantage from here until
the end of the game with me undertaking a strategic masterclass to grind away
all resistance, think again. There is still a long, long way to go and the
advantage swings backwards and forwards countless times.} 19. Rf3 Kh8 {An
entirely understandable and rational choice. The king relieves the queen from
the pin and makes way for Black's rook to come to g8. I didn't even consider
grabbing another pawn with...} (19... Qxc2 $1 {which looked way too hot for me
so I left it well alone. Of course the computer has calculated that the c2
pawn can be grabbed. The best Fritz can find for White here is...} 20. Rc3 Qxb2
21. Qd3 Qb5 22. Qxb5 axb5 23. Rxc7 Rfe8 {After this Black is still clearly on
top.}) 20. Qc4 Rg8 21. Rg3 Qh5 22. Rxg8+ Rxg8 23. Rf1 Qg5 (23... Bg5 24. Nf3
Be3+ 25. Kh1 {was the best course for Black according to the silicone monster.}
) 24. Rf2 Bd8 25. Qe4 {At this point, with still 10 moves to go before time
control, things started to get complicated. Both players had already used up
quite a lot of time. I didn't even consider the game move as I suspected White
might go after the b-pawn by playing 25.Qb4. Instead, he prevents my f-pawn
from advancing (which had been the next stage in my plan) blockades the passed
e-pawn and eyes up the h7 pawn.} c6 $2 {Played without due care and attention.
I admit that I allowed myself to be unsettled by White's last move as I'd
hoped to be playing 25...f5 here. Suddenly, I had to find an alternative plan
and I was running out of time. In haste I played this move which had always
been part of my plan to activate my Bishop and threaten to pin the White Rook.
Unfortunately, this move encourages White to play his strongest response which
equalises the position again immediately. Bearing this in mind, the correct
plan in this position must have been for me to play something like...} (25...
Rg6 26. Nf1 Rf6 27. Ne3 Rxf2 28. Kxf2 Qh5 29. h3 Bh4+ 30. Kf1 {... and Black
retains the advantage due to his extra passed e-pawn. White must try and keep
the queens on the board if he can as otherwise his compensation is pretty much
none existant.}) 26. Rxf7 {Losing the f-pawn was annoying enough, now I
realised that I had to contend with a mate threat on h7 as well! Moreover, I
had just weakened my nicely structured Queen's side pawns by playing c6. If I
defend the mate threat then my c and d pawns look very vulnerable. At this
stage I seriously considered playing 26...Rg7 and offering a draw as I figured
White would play 27.Rf8+ Rg8 28.Rf7 and maybe White would accept a draw by
repetition instead of playing for a win with 28.Rxg8+ Kxg8 29.Nf3 etc. Instead
of taking this sensible approach though, I decided that there was too much
play in the position to offer a draw and decided to plough on with my plan.}
Bb6+ {At least this move sets White some practical problems and at this stage
he was also in a good deal of difficulties with his clock. His next decision
will be crucial. Should he move the King to f1 or h1?} 27. Kf1 $2 {Wrong
decision! But, totally understandable. He must have been worried about back
rank threats if the monarch moved to h1 and with so little time to calculate
he played what he thought must have been his safest option. In fact the best
way to maintain equality was to go the other way with} (27. Kh1 Qh5 $1 {I
guess this was the move White was worried about. Black simultaneously defends
h7, threatens the White Rook on f7 and also 28...Qd1+. White is forced to
defend with} 28. Rf1 {but this is enough to maintain the equilibrium.} Qh6 29.
Qd3 Qg6 30. Qf3 cxd5 31. Qxd5 Be3 32. Nc4 {[%eval -7,0] and Fritz adjudicates
this position as equal.}) 27... Qh5 28. Qf3 {White has managed to take control
of the only open file on the board. This should be an advantage for him and so
Black ought to take steps to reduce the impact of this immediately by
exchanging queens. However, I'd made the (bad?) decision to play for a win
come what may and continued instead with...} Qg5 $2 {My turn to go astray. The
best way was...} (28... Qxf3+ 29. Nxf3 cxd5 30. Rxb7 Be3 31. c3 e4 32. Nd4 Rf8+
33. Ke2 Bg1 34. Ke1 Rf2 {[%eval -22,0] Naturally this line comes from my
computer. There was no chance of me finding this with the time shortage I was
trying to negotiate.}) 29. Rxb7 Bd4 $2 {Consistent, brave... and utterly
incorrect! I felt it was vital to keep my bishop on this diagonal but the
truth was it couldn't stay there. The retreat 29...Bd8 was necessary in order
to free the Black queen from her vigil over the f6 square.} 30. Nb3 $2 {The
errors keep coming! Both of us were down to a our last couple of minutes by
this stage and the sanctuary of time control was still 5 more moves away. The
correct way for White to exploit Black's last move was} (30. dxc6 $1 {It would
take guts and amazing powers of calculation to go for this line over the board
but it's the best move. As now...} d5 31. c7 e4 32. Qf7 Qxg2+ 33. Ke1 {... and
with his attack running out of steam, Black is lost.}) 30... e4 $5 {This was
certainly the only chance I had to create winning opportunities. I was only
too aware that I had very little going for me in this position and that my
play was pure bluster. Unfortunately for my opponent, he didn't have enough
time to calculate all of the possibilities in order to state with certainty
that I was bluffing and so he opted to play it safe. He must have been scared
that if he captured my e-pawn then 31...Rf8+ would be bad for him. That said,
he has to remove the Queen from the f-file anyway so he may as well grab the
pawn on e4 whilst he's at it and hope for the best. Sadly, sensible thoughts
like these don't tend to cross your mind when you only have 30 seconds or so
to make such a crucial decision. Instead of the game move Fritz advocates that
Black allow his d-pawns to become tripled in order to maintain his grip on the
g-file after...} (30... cxd5 31. Nxd4 exd4 32. Ke2 Qxg2+ 33. Qxg2 Rxg2+ {and
the game is level.}) 31. Qh3 $2 {White abandons the f-file completely and he
should have been punished for doing so with check mate. Instead of this Fritz
recommends that White call Black's bluff with...} (31. Qxe4 {This initiates
the kind of complications one could happily spend hours wrestling with. When
you have seconds to make decisions it's pure instinct that guides you. White's
king will now have to go a wandering. The computer has it all figured out of
course but even if my opponent had only been able to calculate the first few
moves of this variation it would have been enough to put him off playing this
move. The following line looks very scary for White indeed.} Rf8+ 32. Ke1 Bf2+
33. Kd1 Qh5+ 34. Kc1 (34. g4 Qxh2 {Is also possible but it still looks
vexingly complicated.}) 34... cxd5 35. Qe7 Be3+ $1 {This nice sacrifice
ensures that Black can maintain the initiative.} 36. Qxe3 Rf1+ 37. Kd2 Rd1+ 38.
Kc3 d4+ {And another one! Black is burning wood fast but the momentum is
everything in this kind of position.} 39. Nxd4 Qc5+ 40. Kb3 Qd5+ {[%eval 56,0]}
41. c4 Qxb7+ {and with two pawns for the exchange White is for preference but
with both Kings exposed and the Queens still on the board anything could
happen.}) 31... Rf8+ {In the mania of the time scramble I missed the forced
win which results when Black places the queen and not the rook on the f-file.}
(31... Qf4+ 32. Ke1 Qf2+ {Black has to do all his work with checks because of
the mate threat White has on h7. The key point here is that, now the King has
been evacuted from f1, Black can capture on g2 with check in a couple of moves.
} 33. Kd1 Qf1+ 34. Kd2 Rxg2+ 35. Qxg2 {This is forced. But, now that the Queen
is off the third rank...} e3# $1 {A very pretty checkmate. I wish I had
spotted this. It would have been a moment to savour.}) 32. Ke1 Bf2+ {My
computer now assesses this position as being in Black's favour again but the
advantage has changed hands several times and will do so again before the game
is up.} 33. Ke2 Qg6 $2 {Yet another inaccuracy best was...} (33... Bh4 $1 {
Threatening 34...Rf2+ and forcing} 34. Qc3+ Kg8 35. g3 e3 $1 36. Qxe3 Qh5+ {
[%eval -93,6] and White will lose his queen because wherever the King now goes
the queen can be pinned to it by either the Black rook or bishop.}) 34. dxc6 {
Finally, White feels confident enough to grab the positional advantage Black's
loose play has offered to him. The c-pawn will be massive.} e3 {This was the
point of my last move. The Queen is hoping to get to c2 and give mate.} 35. Nd4
{Of course I hadn't seen this simple defence to the threat and now Black
really does appear to be lost once more!} Bg1 {This move brought up the time
control and both of us had less than 30 seconds left on our clocks. An extra
15 minutes were added and now, failing to learn the lessons of history my
opponent immediately took almost 10 of those to ponder his next move!!
Presumably he was trying to calculate whether or not Black's threats were
critical after he plays the most natural move in this position...} 36. c7 {
This is the best move but it took him too long to pluck up the courage to play
it. White now had only 5 minutes for the rest of the game and I realised that
I could stir up enough complexity in this position to cause him great
discomfort despite the fact that, positionally, the game is now lost for me
once more.} Qf7 $1 {Threatening mate on f1 of course, but, more importantly,
forcing White to start looking at some long and complicated variations at a
moment when he does not have the time to calculate them accurately.} 37. Kd3 $1
{This is correct. The White king will only be safe once it has managed to run
to c3 and b3 if necessary. Once his majesty is safe White will have the time
to win at his leisure.} e2 {I realised that I was busted here. This is the
last throw of the dice.} 38. c8=Q {White is quite correct to ignore Black's
extravagant threats.} e1=N+ $5 {This was the only chance to try and force the
White king out into the centre of the board.} 39. Ke4 $2 {Under terrible time
pressure, my opponent finally made the decisive error in an error strewn
contest. Either 39.Kd2 or 39.Kc3 would have been good enough to win the game.
Who knows what White was thinking when he played this? Did he think that the
king was now covering the f4 square or did he think that after 39.Kc3 Black
would have been able to play 39... Rxc8+ (he can't of course as this is met by
40.Qxc8)? Either way, This one move now turns the assessment of the position
on it's head(again!) As we were now down to the last few minutes of available
play of the evening both sets of our team mates were kibitzing and practically
having kittens at the boardside at this juncture.} Qf4+ {I still managed to
find a way to play the position inaccurately. To be honest though, by this
stage I was so exhausted, nervous and adrenaline-filled that I was practically
hyper-ventilating and felt like I was shaking uncontrollably. I can only take
some comfort from the fact that, when it was all over, a team mate said he
couldn't see me shaking, so it must have been my imagination! The engine
states that the only sure way for Black to win was to find this absolutely
monstrous forcing variation...} (39... d5+ 40. Ke5 Qf6+ 41. Kxd5 Qxd4+ {[%eval
-153,0]} 42. Ke6 Qe4+ 43. Kd6 Bxh2+ $1 {Exploiting the fact that the two
queens are protecting each other so if 44.Qxh2 then Rxc8!} 44. Kc5 Qxc2+ 45.
Kb6 Bg1+ $1 {A beautiful motif with the bishop!} 46. Ka5 Rxc8 47. Rxh7+ Qxh7
48. Qxc8+ Kg7 49. Qd7+ Kg8 50. Qxh7+ Kxh7 {and although endgame theory (and my
computer) says this is won for Black I'm not sure I'd fancy trying to win it
with a knight and bishop versus three pawns!! Can you imagine if I'd had to
play this endgame as well after all that has gone before? I would surely have
died of fright! I doubt very much I could even remember how to mate with the
bishop and knight let alone have been able to deal with all three pawns
without sacrificing either piece.} 51. Kxa6 {etc.}) 40. Kd5 {With the board
now looking like someone detonated a piece-bomb on it the best Black can hope
for is a draw by repetative check.} Qxd4+ {At least I spotted that...} (40...
Qe5+ {... was not going to be good enough even though I couldn't possibly have
calculated the rest of the line.} 41. Kc4 Qxd4+ 42. Kb3 Qd5+ 43. c4 Qd1+ 44.
Ka3 Nc2+ 45. Ka4 Nb4+ 46. b3 {... and Black is out of checks.}) 41. Ke6 Qf6+ {
Once again, the clock will not allow White the time to find the right solution.
He was having to play his moves almost instantly now and was just hoping
against hope that somehow his king would find a safe haven in order to give
himself the single tempo he needed to win this ridiculous game of chess.
Instead of having time to calculate the best course he had to rush on and
played...} 42. Kd7 $6 {42.Kd5 would have forced Black to repeat moves with 42..
.Qd4+. Perhaps a draw would have been a fair result. Sadly, chess is
notoriously unfair!} Qf7+ 43. Kc6 $4 {Once again, the natural move iis bad
here. Even now if White had been able to find the counter intuitive...} (43.
Kxd6 $1 {then the best Black can do is draw this time with...} Qf4+ 44. Kd7
Qf7+) 43... Qc4+ {This is the crucial point. Now Black will be able to win the
new White queen on c8.} 44. Kd7 {More resiliant was still...} (44. Kxd6 {
forcing Black to find} Bxh2+ $1 {... which with only vapours left on my clock
I surely would have failed to do, diverting the queen on h2 from the
protection of her team mate.} 45. Qxh2 Qd4+ 46. Ke6 Qe4+ 47. Qe5+ Qxe5+ 48.
Kxe5 Rxc8 {and this time Black is clearly winning.}) 44... Qxc8+ 45. Kxd6 Rf6+
{At this point White's flag fell but not before he had tried to play the
illegal 46. Qxh7+ when, to my great shame, I let out a pathetic wail of dismay
thinking that I had overlooked a mate before I remembered that the White king
was already in check! A suitably farcical end to the whole affair and a
cautionary tale for those who may still require proof that getting into time
trouble is a lottery. Incidentally, for anyone who is interested in the
assessment of this final position, my computer tells my that Black has a
forced mate in 12 (!!) moves starting with 46.Ke5 Bd4+! (I might well have
just played 46... Qxh2 here though). I'll leave the rest of the forced mate
for you to figure out though. Simply a ridicualous game.} 0-1

