Dominguez Perez- So: a stunning attack

The current round of the Wijk aan Zee Masters is turning out to be really interesting. Harikrishna has just beaten Nakamura with an attack that I don’t yet fully understand; Caruana 1-0 Rapport, where black’s unusual play met its comeuppance by steady play by white, who took the offered pawns and then was resolute. Lev Aronian gave me a lesson in how to defend a difficult rook and pawn ending with ease, drawing with Giri. Two games remain in play, but the game that has just finished confounded me.

The diagram position, with white to play, looked like a fairly standard Petroff. Because I was more interested in seeing how Lev survived, I only gave the position a cursory glance, appraising it as equal, in the sense that I thought black had enough resources, and white not enough fuel in the tank.

However, white’s next move changed the assessment, and made me take notice.

White to play

(have a look at the diagram for a while before reading on)

Solution

1 Rh7!! was the stunning move: once seen, its reason becomes obvious: to seek to back rank mate black on the h file (1…Rh7 2 Qf7 and 3 Rh1+).  Black replied 1…d4and after  2 Bc4 whilst  I was trying to decide what to do next, thinking of  2…Bf3 (with the idea of pulling back to h5 if permitted, and of taking on g5 if not- if white plays Qf3), So played 2..Qe7 , and then resigned as soon as 3 Qh4 was played. The attached game file shows my present analysis. It appears, but no doubt better analysis will emerge, that 2..Bf3 could have at least struggled on, and might even have maintained equality.

http://www.viewchess.com/cbreader/2014/1/21/Game327521406.html

However, the concept of h4-h5-hg; Qf4; Rh7 is one to remember. Beautifully played by white.