Caro-Kann: von Hennig madness | GOING TOO FAR! 🤪♟️
#carokann #vonhennig #bishopsac #romanticstyle
This was another game from the internal Team Australia tournament for members rated 950-1200, and this was another game where I play some entirely unsound aggressive tactics, mostly for fun and to see what would happen!
The game started with a von Hennig Gambit against my opponent's Caro-Kann Defense (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 dxe4 4: Bc4!?) and Black responded with the very good (4... b5). Immediately striking down the queenside is a good way of fighting back against the von Hennig - forcing White to move their bishop a second, and possibly third time, with the possibility of trapping the bishop.
That's what Black attempted! However, after (5... a5), I got an evil idea in my head that I wanted to implement. I knew that it was almost certainly unsound (it was!) but the idea took root and I wanted to play it. What I saw was that rather than saving my bishop from being trapped with (6. a4), I would capture Black's hanging pawn and place my knight in the centre of the board (6. Nxe4). This definitely hangs my bishop to being trapped after (6. a4), but I was expecting that! Black has now fully committed with many moves of their queenside pawns with no other development, and I now sacrificed my bishop with (Bxf7+)!
My tactical idea was that I now had an attack on Black's king, with the hole in their f-file, with my knight and queen!
I think this idea might have legs in a very fast time control, but it simply didn't work in daily! Black managed to weave their way through the tricky attacks, and on move 12, my attack was completely deflated!
At this point, I was looking for opportunities to perhaps force a draw by repetition, but Black managed to force a queen trade as well. Oh well...! 😅
By move 16, things had traded down, and we were deep in the middlegame. Stockfish thinks I'm losing - I thought I was losing in the game, but I did have a little bit of compensation. Black's king had lost the right to castle. And their pawns were in three islands, with an isolated e-pawn. My pawn structure was pristine, and I still had castling rights. Strategic approach: try to use tactics like pins, avoid simplifying and losing material, and if possible, see whether we can return to material, and preferably, piece number equality before entering the endgame.
On move 21, I noticed another thing. In my mind, Black's best approach would have been to force trades to simplify down to an endgame. However, on that move, they opted not to play the obvious move - to trade rooks. What I took away from this was that they probably had an aversion to material loss, EVEN WHEN the trade was balanced. This was good for me because it meant that if I didn't force the issue, I could hold onto my rooks as well! In this game, holding onto material was key to come back from behind, even if to equality.
These handcuffs that Black placed on themselves gave me the tactical advantage I needed. I managed to win a couple of their pawns, and then, set up a good attack on Black's e-pawn as a target. Black's advantage started to melt away! On move 33, they made a mistake, and we were back at equality! Black had pretty much hung their knight, but unfortunately, I didn't see!
At move 37, Black set up a trap, but I managed to see through it. What I didn't see, however, was that they had also made a mistake in setting the trap, but I had to find it. I had the opportunity to force a series of trades where at the end, we would be left with one rook each, but I would have a 2-pawn advantage in the endgame, with one of those being an outside passed pawn - winning!
I deflected Black's trap - a potential absolute fork (rook and king) if I made what seemed like an advantageous capture - but missed the winning counterattack, beginning with what seems like an unwise trade down of pieces (38. Bxe7) and then (38… Rxe7 39. Rxe7 Kxe7), and finally, (40. Re4+) an absolute fork of Black’s king and knight!
In the game, I made my first real blunder on move 40. I thought that Black had managed to set up a mating net, but I miscalculated! I saw that Black hand managed to arrange their rook pair and knight well and it appeared that they could force my king to the back rank, and then, ladder mate. However, what I missed what that the "final blow" couldn't be played by Black as the critical square (e1) was defended by my b4-bishop along the dark square diagonal! So, I was “fine”, but to respond to the non-existent threat, I traded one of my rooks for Black's knight. In the game, I silently congratulated Black for their great tactical find and I didn't discover this until analysis!
And so, we entered an endgame - bishop + rook for me, and the rook pair for Black. There were a few pawns each on the kingside files. Although the rook pair is theoretically stronger, they aren't necessarily the easiest to play. A rook + bishop pair can be surprisingly powerful as they supplement and augment each. From the point where I traded my rook for Black's knight, we had another 22 moves of dancing and manoeuvring, but I finally got my goal - in a losing game, I managed to wrangle a draw by threefold repetition. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is that you probably shouldn't play the bishop sacrifice opening in the von Hennig Gambit. Although the attack looks scary, there isn't quite enough power to make it work.
