Der Alter Goniff

Here's another fairly recent game, from the May-June running of the Marshall Thursday Night tournament.

White: Leon Zukoff
Black: Ed Gaillard

1.e4 c6 2.f4 d5 3.Nf3 dxe4 4.Ng5 Nf6

So I've never seen this before. I figured that 4....Nf6 prevented 5. Bc4 because of 5...Bg4.

5.Bc4!

Oh. Now I realized that 5....Bg4 runs into 6. Qxg4! Nxg4 7.Bxf7+ Kd7 8.Be6+ Kc7 9.Bxg4

I love it when a plan comes together

Is this good for White? Good for Black? You're asking me? All I know is, this is not the cruise Black signed up for when he played the Caro-Kann.

5...e6 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Ncxe4 Nbd7

I didn't feel too bad here. I used up a little too much time on my first five moves, but I've been able to make the last couple of simple developing moves fairly quickly. I don't like that my QB is locked in, but the Pawn on f4 is pretty funny-looking. At least the position looks Caro-Kann-like:

A nice boring Caro-Kann position

8.Nxf7!

Oh. I probably should have seen that coming.

8...Kxf7 9.Ng5+ Ke8 10.Nxe6 Qa5 11.Nxg7+ Kf8 12.Ne6+ Ke8 13.Ng7+ 1/2-1/2

He took the perp. Yay, me.

Grandmaster draw

I suppose that trying for more could be dangerous, since White doesn't have much development. I looked at this with Asa Hoffman, and it looked decent enough for Black.

(Here's a javascript viewer for the game.)

// posted by ed g. @ 11:11 PM