A Tricky Najdorf

May 4, 2020

Although I have played against the Sicilian defense (1. e4 c5) a lot, I have mostly played against the Sicilian Dragon with the Yugoslav attack. This is a very sharp line of the Sicilian that a lot of people played in my high school chess league, so I learned it quickly after starting high school. The Najdorf Sicilian is different, and I am not very experienced against that variation. For a while, I used to play 1. Nf3 just to avoid playing the French or Sicilian, and later I started playing 2. Bb4 against all Sicilians because I didn’t want to learn all of the lines of the Sicilian defense. Recently, though, I’ve played more common lines of the Open Sicilian, and once in a while, I’ll get surprised by a Najdorf, Kan, or other Sicilian variation I’m not used to playing. That’s what happened to me in the first round of the Empire City Open a few months ago.

Empire City Open U1700 Section, Round 1

This is the beginning of the Najdorf variation. I would tell you black’s goals here, but I don’t know them very well. At a high level, though, there are a few important points:

The move a6 immediately prevents any Bb5 variations, so white’s light-squared bishop is either moving to d3 or e2. Note that after 6. Bc4 b5, white would have to retreat the bishop to d3 because otherwise 7 .. b4 wins black a pawn.
Black will castle kingside, probably fianchettoing the dark squared bishop and prepare an attack on the queenside.
At any point, black can play e5 and change the dynamics of the whole position.

I messed up and played f3 here. f3 is a common move in some Sicilian variations, where pawns move to f3, g4, and h4 to storm the kingside. This was premature and I should have developed some pieces first. Also, this takes the f3 square away from the d4 knight, so after 6. f3 e5, I was forced to retreat to b3 instead of f3. It’s not terrible, but it’s not the best.

Development was a bit abnormal. I ended up trading my knight on d5, which got rid of some tension. Black had some initiative by making threats to my bishops, but they were very weak threats. Black pushed his f-pawn from f7-f5-f4, which makes the kingside really weak. Even though it looks threatening at first, it’s just creating positional weaknesses, especially the e4 square (and light squares in general). Because I messed up a couple of moves in the opening and assumed my opponent knew the Najdorf better than me (since it’s the opening he was playing), I was somewhat worried. The position looks weak for black despite his advanced pawns, and I now believe that I had an advantage in the position above.

Things started to get a bit … spicy … soon. Black played Ra5, an interesting choice since it threatened an annoying pawn but really exposed his rook. At first, it looks frustrating because it means I can’t place a knight on e4. However, there is a better variation here. It takes quite a bit of calculating, but 17. Nc4! Rxd5? is winning because of the discovered attack on d5 from the rook on d1. I played 17. Nc4 to force the rook back to a1, but he actually took the pawn on d5.

The game was played with a 40/100+30d5 time control. Basically, you have 1.5 hours per person to make the first 40 moves and another 30 minutes per person after those moves are over. At this point in the game, I had probably been playing for about 30 minutes to an hour and didn’t want to analyze the position anymore. I had played Nc4 planning to meet Rxd5 with Bg3+ to win the rook. However, I forced myself to double check the line before playing it. After all, if the tactic was so easy, why did a 1500 rated player play Rxd5? When I did this, I noticed an unfavorable line. After Bg3+ hxg3 Rxd5, black could play Be6 to skewer my rook to my knight. Following this with Nd6+ wouldn’t work because black would be able to play Bxd6 Rxd6 Qxd6, and I’d have no escape. A computer analysis of this position shows that saw that instead of Nd6+, Bb6 Qe7 Nxc4! Qd8 Nxg6! pins the e6 bishop to the e7 square (bxd5?? Qxe7#) and protects the rook. I didn’t see this when I played the game so I tried to improvise. I settled on the zwitchenzug (in-between move) Bb6, forcing the black queen to c8 before giving check and taking the rook. This would let me eventually fork the king and queen with Nd6+, and after Bxd6 Rxd6, the black queen couldn’t recapture the rook on d6.

The dust clears, and I come out up the exchange. This is a relief, since my first in-person tournament match in about 7 months is off to a great start. I’m up the exchange and a pawn, control the center of the board, and definitely have the initiative. Black has limited counterplay, but the game is far from over. At this point, I started to relax a little too much and gave the initiative away. Black tried to make some queenside attacks, because the position was open. Instead, I started to play passively, trying to hold my material advantage and wait for the position to liquidate. In essence, I was making almost no progress and just waiting for my opponent to trade down until I had a winning advantage. It seems like a safe option, but giving my opponent counterplay is not how I should play the position.

Here, the position is still winning for white, but it’s a bit trickier. Although I have a material advantage, only my queen is actually doing anything in this position. Because black has more active pieces on the board, he currently has control of the game. After my biggest blunder, 31. Qb4?? Qa2+, black was able to convert his positional advantage into a material advantage. This is important to note becuase I could’ve easily prevented a position like this had I only played more actively. It takes a lot of carelessness to be winning and then lose to an attack that uses only 2 pieces. Not only is this position losing material, black actually has a decisive advantage here. After 32. Kc1 Bb3, the threats of Bxd1 and Qa1+ are too much. If I move my rook off the first rank (playing Rd2 to prevent Qa1+ followed by QxR), Qa1+ becomes checkmate.

My move, Kd2, admits defeat and lets black win my rook for his bishop. I missed black’s winning line, which involves black taking on b2 instead and continuing a winning attack instead of taking the rook. Thankfully, my opponent missed this line too. Instead, he traded the bishop for my rook and I was left up a pawn.

Queen endgames are fairly uncommon at the amateur level because most games where the queens stay on the board end with strong attacks. In fact, this was my first tournament game, and possibly my first game in general that ended in a queen endgame. When I first played this game, I thought that the game was kinda drawish but not too hard to win. However, I didn’t know the principles of queen endgames, and how to win them.

Queen endgames only end in a win when you can force a queen trade or force a pawn promotion (just like most endgames)
It’s significantly harder to force a queen trade because if the position ever opens, the two queens are free to do whatever they want.
Most queen endgames end drawn when one side can force perpetual check. This sounds hard, but perpetual check can be extremely easy in endgames with open positions.
Because it’s almost impossible to force a queen trade, the winning player usually must promote a pawn to win. This usually means that you need a passed pawn to have winning chances in the game.

The last point is crucial. Queens are flexible pieces, and if you take even one move to take a pawn, the opponent can have a perpetual check that draws the game. Instead, moving the king with the passed pawn and inching your way accross the board while being wary of perpetual checks is the way to win this position. An example of this can be found at the following game, intermezzio vs JPF917.

I played this wild queen and rook vs queen and rook endgame after that tournamentm using my advanced passed pawns to win - even after sacrificing my queen for his rook! (It became a queen endgame after I sacrificed my rook to promote to a queen). This game took place from January 27 - March 27 (online via correspondence chess), after the Empire City Open.

During the tournament game, I didn’t know the importance of having a passed pawn. Instead, I saw that Qxf4 gave black isolated, doubled pawns. Although this is important in some positions, now that doesn’t really matter. I traded my passed pawn on d3 for black’s f4 pawn.

At this point, my opponent offered a draw because I had no more real winning chances. Usually, I would be somewhat offended that my opponent offered me a draw in this position. I was higher rated and up a pawn, but my opponent was an older gentleman, and he didn’t seem to have bad intentions (e.g. trying to get a draw wven though he thought it was losing for himself). On the contrary, I have been offered a draw when I was obviously winning. At K-12 chess nationals four years ago, I was up a few pawns and possibly the exchange, too. My opponent knew he was going to lose but still offered me a draw. I was a bit bothered and declined, after which he immediately resigned in the position. When I asked him about it later, he said “I might as well ask [for a draw]". The position in this game isn’t nearly as one-sided, however, and although I thought I was winning, it was a dead draw after I traded off the past pawn.

I declined the draw and played on. I moved my king to the kingside to try and push my pawn majority (3 pawns v 2 pawns), but once my pawns moved to the fourth rank, I was unable to continue pushing forward without avoiding perpetual check. In the end, I took a draw by perpetual check, but I learned a lot about queen endgames after playing this game (and anlayzing it later).

This game was rough, but it has helped me learn a lot about endgames and why they’re more drawish than most amateurs think. My theory is that player with < 1800 (USCF) ratings don’t know when they should trade pieces in endgames, or at least they don’t know how to prevent trades. Even though almost every rook endgame is drawn at the professional level, almost no rook endgame is drawn at more novice levels. This is because the losing player, when they’re an amateur, doesn’t try hard enough to keep the rooks on the board and end the game with the rooks still on the board. Queen endgames are easier to draw but not as drawish as rook endgames, but this isn’t well known at the amateur level. Learning this is important, because forcing a queen endgame is a powerful tool a player has when he is down some material and wants a draw. In fact, in the same tournament, I turned a losing game into a queen endgame. My unsuspecting opponent didn’t know how to win, so I was able to earn the half point even though I was down two pawns. If your rating is in between 800-1800 (yes, that’s quite a big range), I would recommend practicing a queen endgame and using “conversion to a queen endgame” as an easy drawing strategy in losing positions. It may work better than expected against unsuspecting opponents!