May-27-14

luzhin : Wonderful sacrificial attack by Williams, beginning with the imaginative 17.Bd3! May-28-14 Tim Delaney : Interestingly, although he cannot enforce immediate mate, White, after all those sacrifices will emerge with overwhelming material superiority. May-28-14

An Englishman : Good Evening: ...f5 seems to have come much too soon; perhaps ...Nd7-f6-g8 would improve? May-28-14 Castleinthesky : Great game! My term for these games are "feeding the fire." They are very exciting because the side with the initiative keeps feeding the fire with sacrifices until either the fire burns out (usually my case) or victory is achieved (Simon's case). May-28-14 howlwolf : I looked at this game yesterday and now it is GOTD. May-28-14

kevin86 : Chess players often learn that sacrifices often lead to huge material gain, too bad people couldn't learn that. I'm predicting that white's queen rook will deliver the final blow. May-28-14

eternaloptimist : It "seems" like black gets blasted about 90% of the time in Czech Benoni games (amongst strong players). Although in reality the %age of wins by white is much lower (probably about 60% of the time in DECISIVE games. Still the Czech Benoni is not a good opening. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the games that are won by black are games in which black is a good bit stronger than white. Although some variations of the Benoni are really good & black can get some of the best positions imaginable IF he/she understands the ideas behind the Benoni. It amazes me that the Czech Benoni is still used by strong players. Although at least GM marcelin was trying to be creative in this game. <An Englishman> it does indeed seem that 12...♙f5 came much too soon b/c marcelin wasn't even finished w/ the development of his pieces. Also "fianchettoed" ♘s aren't normally a good idea. They don't normally do too much from those squares. <howlwolf> That's interesting! I don't remember that ever happening to me. May-28-14 Mudphudder : I have a headache after looking at this game. May-28-14

eternaloptimist : Actually I can think of some good things about the Czech.: 1) the chances of a computer generated novelty being sprung on u are practically zero b/c computers don't understand closed positions w/ a minimum of ♙ breaks very well. 2) good patient defensive players w/ good endgame knowledge could play this opening well. Although timing is critical in this opening (especially the ...♙f5 break...just ask marcelin :D). He didn't have enough patience/didn't understand the position well enough. If white can occupy the e4 square w/ a ♘ or open up the position there after the ...♙f5 break, it can be fatal for black. This game opened up w/ fatal consequences for marcelin after 17...♙e4 18.♘xe4. IM Richard Palliser would disagree w/ me on some of the things I've said but look at the notable games on CG & it speaks volumes. It's interesting that ALL of the notable Czech games on CG were won by white & in some cases the inferior player won!: Opening Explorer GM Williams is needless to say a strong player & has had some ingenious attacks (as in this game). However he didn't fare too well against the world team here on CG as he was crushed. Of course this has a lot to do w/ proficiency w/ analysis on a chess engine. Jun-01-14 JohnRed : I think 16 a6? is blacks critical mistake. Instead e4 immediately would've been better. The key differenece is that white wouldn't get a strong bishop on d3.