Naiditsch-Adams Tromsø Olympiad

My previous post mentions yesterday's Berlin endgame Naiditsch-Adams, but is mainly a trip down memory lane to Adams-Almasi from the 2004 Olympiad, my first captaincy of the England team.

I have now had time to play through yesterday's game, and realise that my narrative of the game was wrong. I felt, watching it live yesterday, that Mickey was worse, often far worse, and rescued a draw. This understanding was wrong: the game was near equal throughout, and doubtless Mickey (and Zoltan) knew this.

One interesting position is below, where Mickey played the active 40…Nd4. Instead, he could have played 40…Nd8 securing the draw, since some cute tactics don't quite work for white. An advantage of Nd8 is that it leaves d4 for the rook, so that 41 a4 Rd4 (Ra2 42 Rc4) 42 a6! (deflecting the rook) Ra4[] 43 Nd5 ( threatening the deflected rook by Nb6+) Ra6 (just in time) 44 Rc7+ and the second (and the obvious) point of Nd8 is revealed- it defends the Pf7.

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