0361 FOUR KNIGHTS GAME
Upper Neuse Ch, Rd 4, 12-14-03, Raleigh
Patrick McCartney (1986)  Ronald Phillips (2053)
1 e4 e5 2 Nc3 Nc6 3 Nf3 d6 4 Bb5 Nf6 (Black now has an inferior version of the Spanish Four Knights with 4...d6. He probably should have played 3...Nf6 instead of 3...d6, and follow up 4 Bb5 with either 4...Bb4 or 4...Nd4. If Black was attempting to reach a Philidor, then 2...Nf6 should be played instead of 2...Nc6 as the knights belong on f6 and d7.) 5 d3 Bd7 6 O-O Be7 7 Ne2 O-O 8 c3 a6 9 Ba4 b5 10 Bc2 (White's setup is fairly similar to that found in a Ruy Lopez) 10...d5 11 ed5 Nd5 12 d4 ed4 13 Ned4 Nd4 14 Nd4 Bf6?? +- (14...Nf6 15 Bg5 is at most a slight advantage for White.  Black may even be close to equality.  After the move played, White has a move that would almost force Black to resign immediately.) 15 Bh7?? +/- (White maintains a big advantage, and the idea is right, but the move order is wrong.  White wins on the spot with 15.Qh5!! since no move on the board can both stop the mate and save the knight, and so White wins a whole piece this way instead of a pawn) 15...Kh7 16 Qh5 Kg8 17 Qd5 Bg4 18 Qd8 Rad8 19 Be3 c5 20 Nb3 c4 21 Nc5 Ra8 22 h3! (Forcing Black to give up either the d1 or d7 square) 22...Bh5 (I felt that 22...Bf5 aught to be the better move) 23 Nd7 Rfd8 24 Nf6 gf6 25 Bd4 Kg7 26 Rfe1 Re8 27 g4 Bg6 28 g5 Bf5 29 Bf6 Kg6 30 Kg2 Re6 31 Re6 Be6 32 Kg3 Ra7 33 h4 Rd7? (Black had to try 33...Kh5 to prevent White's next move) 34 h5! Kh5? (34...Kh7 was the only way to avoid immediate disaster, but after 35 a4 ba4 36 Ra4 Rd6, White is winning. Note that 34...Kf5 is answered by 35 Re1 where now 35...Rd5 is forced to avoid mate on e5, and now 36 f3 sets up 37 Re4 and 38 Rf4, forcing Black to move his Bishop, and then his King to e6, which puts the King out of range of the h-pawn, and White would win soon after that. The move played in the game results in a forced mate in 5) 35 Rh1 Kg6 36 Kf4! (Removing the last escape square for the Black King. Black now has no way of preventing mate with Rh6 aside from a couple of useless moves. Black resigned.) 1-0 (This was my only win of the tournament...I had 3 draws prior to this game, and 1 loss the final round.  2 1/2 was enough to end up tying the "Class A" prize, and taking some pocket change; $31.25 to be exact) (Notes by McCartney)