Ray Could Play X

Keene v Iskov, Esbjerg 1981

"A disaster." That was how Vishy Anand summed-up his performance at the London Chess Classic. Maybe it was, but if he thinks scoring 50% at Super GM tournaments is bad he should try getting minus three in an Open and see how that feels.

Unfortunately my LCC was one of those events where absolutely nothing goes right. It wasn't a losing a lot in a sound-thrashing-every-now-and-again-is-good-for-you kind of a way either. I'm afraid it was much more of a playing-utter-bilge-and-wanting-to-give-up-chess-by-the-end-of-it experience.

Things started to go wrong as early as move two in the first round. I was paired with IM Lorin D'Costa, but after I'd carefully prepared for his Nimzo-Indian he played 2 ... g6. "Arse it", I thought as I watched him push his king's knight pawn forward, "that's a morning's work down the drain."

9 h3

Not knowing what branch of the Nimzo to expect from Lorin, I had a look at a few possible lines. My choice to counter the Hubner variation, should the game go that way, would have been an old idea introduced by Portisch against Tony Miles at Amsterdam in 1981 and subsequently taken up with some enthusiasm and success by our old friend Raymond Keene.

1 d4 Nf6, 2 c4 e6, 3 Nc3 Bb4, 4 e3 c5, 5 Bd3 Nc6, 6 Nf3 Bxc3+, 7 bxc3 d6, 8 e4 e5 and now, instead of 9 d5 as in the famous Spassky-Fischer game from Reykjavik amongst countless others, 9 h3. White is happy to let Black capture multiple times on d4 - he'll play Bb2, recapture the pawn and have a pair of bishops on an open(ish) board - and will wait for a better moment to close the centre. As far as I know Portisch's plan was defanged pretty much as soon as the novelty had worn off, but I was hoping that it was old enough that my IM opponent would have forgotten all about it.

That, in any event, is how I came to spend some of the morning before my second-ever game against an International Master watching the last of the old episodes of The Master Game which featured in one of Justin's posts - It's all over now, Baby Blue - back in June. Naturally, I made sure to track down the games that Keene and Browne mention in that video too and they're both pretty interesting. Raymondo's win over Iskov reached the position shown in the diagram at the top of today's blog and apparently the unusual central pawn formation prompted somebody to ask him "Are you playing chess or building a cathedral?" The Ligterink game, by the way, is the one mentioned in the comments box to Ray Could Play VI and featured a brace of rather tasty exchange sacrifices.

It's a shame I didn't get to play any of this really. If I get the opportunity at some point next year I'll definitely take it. 9 h3 might not lead to an objective advantage for White, but it seems sound enough and it certainly leads to some interesting positions. Mind you, given that it was favoured by Keene during one of the most successful periods of his career, it's hardly surprising that it's a decent move. Ray could play a bit, you know?

Ray Keene Index

Photograph of Lorin D'Costa from Gibraltarchesscongress.com