[Chess] Adventure in the Sicilian 2

This was played in Chess.com with the time control of 3 minutes with 2 seconds increment.

1. e4 c5


THE Sicilian!
Black isn't interested in copying White. He wants to make the position asymmetric.

2. Nf3 d6
3. d4 cxd4
4. Nxd4 Nf6
5. Nc3 a6


This, ladies and gentlemen, is the lengedary Sicilian Najdorf.
a6 move on the 5th move is what signifies the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense.
Black eventually wants to play ...e5 and gain an equal footing in the center, but wants to prevent any annoying shenanigans on the b5 square.

6. Be3


This bishop move signifies the English Attack, White's most popular system against Najdorf.
The idea is to castle Queenside, and launch his Kingside pawns against Black's Kingside.

6... e5


Now Black strikes in the center, dislocating White's strong knight on d4.
To be able to play this move is the whole point of a6 move.

7. Nb3 Be6
8. f3 Be7
9. Qd2 Nbd7
10. 0-0-0 0-0


So the battlefield has been set.
Both sides castled (on opposite sides) and have developed most of their minor pieces off the back rank.
Now's it's a race.
Who can get to the opponent's King faster?
He who does it first, will have the initiative, and will dictate the game.

11. h4


I found this move inaccurate.
He should play g4, so that he can play g5 next and displace my knight.
It's true that he will play h4 eventually even if he starts out with g4, g5, but the move order matters in race positions.
And thanks to this, I get the initiative.

11... b5


Straight to the point, I want to play b4 next and displace his knight which also gains me time.


12. h5


The point of this move is to prevent my knight from going into h5 and clogging the kingside when he pushes g4,g5.
While it's understandable, it is seriously time consuming to do this.

12... b4


Now it becomes clear who will attack first.

13. Nd5 Bxd5
14. exd5 a5


Protecting my b pawn and threatening a 2nd knight-displacing pawn push

15. Kb1


He wants to vacate the c1 square for his knight, since otherwise, his knight will have to go to a miserable a1 square when i push a4.

15... a4
16. Nc1


I think it's clear at this point, that White's strategy of pushing the h-pawn first has not worked out.
I have gained significant ground on the Queenside, with tempi too.

16... Qa5
17. g4 Nb6


By the time White finally gets g4 in, my pieces are already ominously gathering towards the White King.
Now, the threat is to take the d5 pawn.

18. g5


A true spirit of the Sicilian.
Rather than protecting a pawn, White decides to sacrifice it for a gain of time

18... Nfxd5
19. g6


Interestingly, despite all that time I gained by pushing his knights around, it is White who makes the first pawn to pawn contact!
But this is a game of initiative.
Just because your opponent made a threat doesn't mean you have to respond to it.
In Sicilian, it is better, if possible, to make a counter-threat.
It's all about fighting for the initiative.
And here, I found a move, that is possibly the proudest move I have ever played, that violently wrests initiative firmly away from him.

19... Nc3+!!


What better way is there to take the initiative than sac'ing a piece?
What's amazing is that, when I checked this game with an engine after the game, not only is this move 100% sound, it is the best move in the position!
Looks like I'm 1 step closer to becoming like Tal

20. bxc3


Moving the King and sac'ing the exchange gives him no compensation.

20... bxc3


And look at that beautiful highway straight to his King!
This was what I envisioned when I sac'd the knight.
I knew with an open b-file, an attack would come naturally.

But this, turned out to be the most critical moment in the game.
White has to move his Queen.
But where?
Does it matter?
It turns out, ABSOLUTELY YES, it matters where the Queen goes.

21. Qd3?


A pretty natural looking move.
But unbeknownst to both of us, this move was a major blunder.

The key was to keep the Queen along the 2nd rank to protect... a2!
It's things like this that makes Chess such a fascinating game.
Of course in Blitz, there is no time to see or calculate nuances like this.

21... Qb4+


Now that the way to his King has been opened, let the checks flood in!
Patzer sees check, Patzer plays check!

22. Nb3


He had no choice but to give back the piece, so my knight sac really wasn't a sac after all.

22... axb3
23. cxb3


Taking back with the a-pawn leads to unstoppable mate.
So the b-file has been closed, but here, I unleashed the my 2nd proud move of the game.

23... Rxa2!!


BAM!! When you are attacking a King, nothing is too valuable to sac.

I could literally imagine Maurice Ashley of St. Louis Chess Club going "Check this out guys, ROOK TAKES a2! and White is BUSTED!"

Now, we see why the Queen had to stay on the 2nd rank.
If his Queen was on the 2nd rank, I would not have been able to do this!

24. Kxa2 Ra8+


Here, it probably dawned on White that if he moves his King back, he will get mated by force.
That left him with only one option.

25. Qa6


Giving up the Queen, but even this will not be enough.

25... Rxa6+
26. Bxa6 Qa5+


And it is clear, that Black is up material and still with the attack due to White's vulnerable King position and Black's c-pawn.

27. Kb1 Qa3?!


Ambitious, yet slightly dubious.

I should have just taken the bishop and it would have been 3 pieces vs 3 pieces, where I'm clearly better.
But I was all pumped with adrenaline with what just happened, and with the dangerous pawn on c3, I thought I could go for even more than just winning a bishop.
I was wrong on this.

28. Kc2


King hurriedly gets away from the warzone.

28... Qb2+
29. Kd3 c2


Constantly making dangerous looking moves is useful in sharp positions.
But, objectivity should not be lost, and here, I am actually not going anywhere with this pawn...

30. Rc1 Qxb3+


Realizing that my little venture has not paid off, I desperately looked for a ways to keep presenting him with practical problems.

31. Ke2 Nd5
32. Bd3 Nxe3


Setting up a little skewer.

33. gxf7+ Kxf7
34. Kxe3 Bg5+


I was a little bummed that what should have been a technically easy win has turned into a game again, thanks to my greed.
But with this skewer, I was pretty confident that I can win the Q vs. R + B endgame.

35. Ke2 Bxc1
36. Rxc1 Qb4


My c pawn is a lost cause, so I change direction to the Kingside.
From there, I was hoping to win his pawns and give checks from that direction

37 Rxc2 Qh4
38. Bxh7 Qxh5
39. Be4


It's abundantly clear that life has become much more difficult for me than it should have been.
But here, we both were getting pretty low on time, so both of us were more or less playing random moves.

39... Qh2+
40. Ke3 Qf4+
41. Ke2 g5
42. Rc7+ Kf6
43. Rc8 Qh2+
44. Ke3 Qg1+
45. Ke2 Qg2+
46. Ke3 Qb2
47. Rf8+ Kg7
48. Ra8 Qc3+
49. Kf2 Qd2+
50. Kg3 Qe1+
51. Kg2 Qd2+
52. Kg3 Qf4+
53. Kf2 g4


At last, I realized that I probably won't make any progress unless I get this move in and create a passed pawn.

54. Ke2 g3


Trading pawns was another option, but somehow, I felt like it would be useful to have his bishop blocked off by his own pawn.

55. Ra7+ Kf6
56. Ra1 g2
57. Rg1 Qg3
58. f4?


My opponent cannot stand to see my pawn on g2, restricting his Rook, so he initiates the trades of pawn.
But this fails tactically.

58... exf4
59. Rxg2 Qe3+


And at last, I win this light squared bishop, and with it, the game.

60. Kf1 Qxe4
61. Rf2 Ke5?


lol, it's never too late to make a mistake in a chess game.
Luckily for me, this mistake did not matter.

62. Re2


Potentially game throwing mistake by me.... but not this time fortunately.

62... d5
63. Kf2 Qxe2+
64. Kxe2 Ke4


And this is pretty easily winning King and Pawn endgame.
My opponent played til mate for some reason, which was fine by me.

65. Kf2 f3
66. Kf1 Ke3
67. Ke1 d4
68. Kf1 d3
69. Ke1 d2+
70. Kf1 d1=R#


Underpromotion for the lolz...

Man! This is the kind of game you play Sicilian for.
Double-edged, risky, sharp, where every move matters.

Hopefully, I will have more games like this, and hopefully I can play more moves like Nc3+ and Rxa2 in the future.
Nc3+ was probably my proudest move in my chess life so far, even though it was played in blitz.

Anyway, thanks for reading.
Hope you enjoyed!

Link to the game: https://www.chess.com/livechess/game?id=1553176992#