1 Year of Game Analysis - Week 1: Kasparov-Nakamura 2017 St. Louis Blitz

Hey all!

One of my goals for the New Year is to do analysis for a game each week for a total of 52 this year. I want to share my analysis in posts for the benefit of the community, but also so people can comment on what I missed or where I can improve in my process. I will be inputting all games into the analysis engine, saving them, and linking them here. These games will also be those which you can find on YouTube if you want to see them as they happened with/without commentary.

Enjoy!

Kasparov-Nakamura 2017

The game with commentary from Daniel Naroditsky

Opening (1. d4) 
The opening is the Nimzo-Indian Defense: Classical Noa, Variation.
Middlegame (9. h4) 
The middlegame begins with 9. h4, a seemingly odd move with a rook-pawn. However, White’s likely plan is to march the rook-protected pawn up the board and weaken the pawn structure with something like X. h6 g7xh6 or X. h5 g6 Y. hxg6 hxg6. White continues this plan with 11. h5 and 12. g4; 14. g5 forces 14…hxg5 15. Bxg5 f6 16. Bd2.

The material is equal and the position roughly so, though both players’ light-squared bishop and a-file rook are inactive. White remedies the latter with 17. Rc1 attacking the hanging c5 pawn and X-raying the similarly hanging Knight on c6. Black opts for the following series of moves: 17…Nd4 19. Rxc5 Nxf3+ 20. exf3; this loses a pawn, though perhaps Black thought it was a worthy loss to double White’s pawns and leave the king undefended.

White busies themselves with developing more of their pieces, specifically 20. Rh4 22. Rd4 and 23. Bg2 24. f4 building significant tension on the Black knight on d5. The tension breaks in a flurry of trades starting with 28. Bxd5 with a response of …exd5. This is followed by 29. Rdxd5 Rxd5+ 30. Rxd5 Rd7 31. Rxd7 Bxd7, significantly simplifying the position and initiating the endgame.

Endgame (31…Bxd7)
White is up 2 pawns with a 2 on 1 queenside majority; the obvious goal is to create a passed pawn on this side. White beings moving their king towards the Black pawn on a6 (32. Ke3 34. Kd4 35. Kc5). 

Black attempts to bring their king down to attack White’s doubled pawns on the f-file (33…Kxh6 34…Kh5 35…Kg4 36…f3) but White prevents this with 36. Bd2; this gives White crucial time to go 37. Kb6 and threaten the unprotecting a6 pawn.

Black sends their bishop to the rescue with 37…Bd5 but 38. a4 forces the bishop away (38…Bf1). White creates a passed pawn with 39. b5 axb5 40. axb5. Black goes 40…Kxf2 with the likely intention of eventually clearing the pawn on f4 to create their own passed pawn.

White goes 42. Bc1 43. Ba3 (with the goal of 44. e7 45. g5) to prevent this, at which point White resigns.