0312 French Defense
World Open, Rd: 7, 7/5/03, Philadelphia
Pedro Perdomo (1846) Patrick McCartney (1931)
1 e4 e6 2 d4 d5 3 ed5 Qd5 (An unusual, but playable line.  Play is similar to that of the Scandinavian Defense where Black retreats his Queen to d8. Note that if White plays an immediate 4 Nc3 that 4...Qa5 is bad as Black doesn't have the opportunity to get the bishop out to the f5 square that it normally likes to be on in the scandinavian.  That leaves retreating the queen or pinning the Knight with his Bishop as his options, both of which are viable.) 4 Nf3 Nf6 5 Bd3 (White holds up on Nc3) 5...c5 6 Nc3 Qd8 7 Bg5 cd4 8 Nd4 Be7 9 0-0 Bd7 10 Qe2 a6 11 Rad1 Qb6 (White must do something about the Knight, now that he doesn't have any discoveries via a check with
the Bishop as his tactical defense to the d4-knight.)12 Nb3 0-0 13 Ne4 Nd5 14 Qh5 (Trading Bishops first is probably better, deflecting the knight further away from the sensitive h7 square.)14...Bg5 15 Ng5 h6 16 Nh7?! (This is not a good idea, as the knight is soon going to get trapped with no immediate threats) 16...Rd8 17 Qh4 f5! 18 Bf5 ef5 19 Rd5 Kh7 20 Rfd1 Re8 21 Nc5 Be6 22 Na4 Qc7 23 Rd6 Bb3!! (With Black up a piece and his desire to trade pieces, this tactical move is excellent, and forces material off the board.  The bishop is poisoned as Black threatens 24...Qd6 and White can't recapture due to the mate threat on the back rank.) 24 Qf4 (White attempts to refute Black's idea with a tactical threat of his own, that being 25 Rh6 winning the Black Queen. Black has an answer to that though.) 24...Qe7 (Black uses a mate threat as his defense to White's double threat of taking the Bishop on b3 combined with the discovery threat on his Queen.) 25 h3 Bc2 (Gaining a pawn, and protecting the f-pawn.) 26 Rc1 Ba4 27 Qa4 (White can't take the pawn on f5 with check due to the duel threat that follows after 27...Kh8 of mate on the back rank, and simply moving the bishop, maintaining a 2-piece advantage) 27...Nc6 (Black finally gets his 2 remaining queenside pieces developed, and Black's play is now fairly elementary since he's now putting his extra piece to use, and is able to get his other rook in the game.) 28 Qf4 Qe5 29 Qd2 Re7 30 a3 Rae8 31 Rd5 Qf6 32 Rd6 Re1 33 Re1 Re1 34 Kh2 Qe5 35 g3 Qe4 0-1 (Notes by McCartney)