Danya Naroditsky wins TITLED TUESDAY Feb 22, 2022 !!

Today this post will explore the win from @DanielNaroditsky in the late

Titled Tuesday blitz 3+1 event held today !

While the first TT was won by B. Jobava, the second one saw a clear win by GM "Danya" Naroditsky, a well-known and popular streamer and chess.com lead commentator. Jobava was also participating, in particular he defeated Hikaru Nakamura in round 7.

Here are the top standings with GM Naroditsky finishing with 9.5/11 , ahead of GM Gawain Jones and GM Daniil Dubov !

let's focus on one game, where Danya had the black pieces and played a King's Indian Defense . Playing White was GM from India Abhijeet Gupta.

Here's a position in the opening 

White is intending to play long castle 0-0-0 and Black will try f7-f5 after Nf6-h5. A sharp battle will take place !

Position after 15 0-0-0

This is already a key moment as each side will attack the opposite king. Both players were near to the top of the standings and this was round 9 !

Let's see what the computer suggests for Black 

Either ..b5 or ..a6 preparing the b7-b5 breakthrough. Or even Rb8 to prepare b7-b5.

But Daniel Naroditsky went for 15..a5

His idea is to secure his knight on c5 and also play a5-a4 next. But Gupta got a better position and here the key moment where White played Nb5! highlighting the issue with Black's plan.

As you can see, The c7 pawn is threatened. It is not easy to defend. Danya went for Qd8 but this leaves White with Nf4 threatening to play Nf4-e6, a superb outpost for the knight.

let's see Stockfish eval and moves in this position

The move played by Danya is the engine 3rd choice and the game followed Stockfish line

19..Qd8 20 Nf4 Ne5 21 g4! opening the play further. The computer suggests it was better for Black not to try to defend c7.

Also we can make sense of the computer suggestions. Early on  Black had to play for the breakthrough b7-b5, and Black didn't go for it. The corresponding (symetrical) breakthrough for White is g3-g4 which opens the g-file. 

Here I first looked at the game without the eval/engine, and then only did I turn the engine on.

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This is Titled Tuesday!!, and all games are hard fought. Danya has an amazing fighting spirit and he is very difficult to face. The rest of the game will showcase his deep chess understanding.

Let's go to the next critical moment, "there must be something there".

White to play (26th move)

Here we can see that Black took the knight on e6, which was too powerful to tolerate. But how to continue ?

Very difficult in a blitz game, and this is the turning point of the game and maybe of the tournament.

We have to notice that Black doesn't threaten Qxe6 because White would play Nxc7!

We also note that the knight on c5 is pinned, as White would take the rook on b6 if the knight moves. Black cannot attack the white king.

So the solution is to continue the attack with White, as Black's resources are limited.

and here we turn to Stockfish to suggest concrete moves and tell us if White has a small or large advantage.

We find out that the position is about +3.94 pawns for White. Decisive advantage.

The best move is 26 h4! but even a simple move like 26 Rd5! is very strong. You can also play a move like Rg4 to prepare h4 and double the rooks.

The hard thing to calculate is 26h4!. yes the threat is h4-h5 but doesn't this lose a pawn ?

Let me go through the variations after 26 h4!

if Black takes with the knight 26..Nxh4  then you would simply do 27 Bxc5 dxc5 28 Rd7 as shown 

we can see that White will win the bishop on g7 with the combined attack of the rook on d7 and the one on g1.

if Black were to take on h4 with the queen, we would reach this position White to play

And here the hard move to find is the brilliant 27 Rg5! cutting of the queen and threatening 28 Rh5! Remember than the knight on c5 is pinned and White is developing an attack for the small investment of the h4-pawn. the g and h files are open.

but even 26 Rd5! would have left Black with no good way to defend. 

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However White decided on the 26th move to go for 26 Bxc5 dxc5 27 Rd7

we have seen this motif before, except that here White doesn't threaten to win because the knight on g6 blocks the attack from the rook on g1 ( in the other variations the black knight was on h4)

so Danya played 27 ..Qxe6! with the following position, where he is in the driving seat !

Because of the knight placed on g6, there is no decisive tactical win for White

The position is double-edged, but White has lost the powerful dark square bishop, and the rook on d7 is threatened. Bg4 was played but Qf6 was the answer.

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White lost the thread and we reached one final position which deserves to be shown.

This position is for White to play - 33th move 

It is obvious that Danya threatens Qa1#

This is why Black lined up the queen and rook on the first rank

But why didn't white play 33 Qxa4 ? On 33..Qa1+ White would be able to escape with 34 Kb3

Can you see the next move after 33 Qxa4 Qa1+ 34 Kb3 , what would black play ?

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This is a bit of vizualization/tactical vision exercize

Here's the visual solution

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It turns out that Black could win the queen by playing 34..Ra6! or get a winning attack by playing 34..Rb1 attacking b2.

in the game White didnt play 33 Qxa4 but played 33 Bd1 which loses a bishop.

Here's the end of the game with my annotations and focused on the 33th decision by White to play 33.Bd1

I figured I would focus on this hard fought King's Indian battle while we wait for the overall chess.com recap