Christmas Hedgehog

What has Christmas gotta do with the hedgehog? Nothing I suppose, except Sonic the Hedgehog was born on Christmas Island.

However, I would like to show two 'Hedgehog' games played over the week. The 'three rank' Hedgehog system has generally been used for patient maneuvering players to take the fight into the middlegame. The Hedgehog exponent will then 'tickle' their opponents into overextending or misplacing their pieces and in the process, attempt to  unleash his  flank or central break at the right moment, causing mayhem hopefully in his favour.

However, the modern treatment (- well, not so modern if you consider Fischer-Andersson 'classical') is to start a flank attack as soon as the opponent castles kingside. GM Sergei Shipov provided a lengthy 47 page explanation of Black's plan in The Complete Hedgehog Volume 2, , naming the g pawn punt as 'Fischer's plan'.  A very good introductory article on Black's plans was also written by WGM Raluca Sgîrcea and IM Renier Castellanos, entitled Top 3 plans for Black in the Hedgehog.

OK, let's get down to the games. the first, a nice White Reti/English/Reversed Kan structure game which has been essayed by the world's top players in recent years...

My  chess pals have procrastinated 2 years to complete their Seabass 2 Semi finals challenge match (You can read about the Seabass 1 event here). IM Terry Toh had won Game 1 in the semi finals (IM Goh Wei Ming defeated IM Hsu Li Yang in the other semi finals) and so needed a draw in this game to advance.  So what should one play with White vs an opponent who has outplayed him in the endgame (in the first game) handily and might very well vacuum the pieces off the board pronto?

So, inspired by Ghee's play (he went on to win the tiebreak blitz 2-0), since I had been teaching/revising Sicilian systems with ...e6 to students, I decided to play the line with an eye to playing Fischer's plan if possible. And on Christmas eve, despite losing a blitz match to IM Hsu Li Yang (think it was a 6.5-5.5 result), I got a nice thematic game where everything worked like a charm.