Game Analysis: You Can't Win Them All

Hello again. For those of you that have been following my posts since the summer will know what my take is on the French Tarrasch. White gets zero advantage! I have shown extensive analysis on it in two articles. The games from the New Hampshire Open back in July, specifically round 2, and in the third of the seven articles on the French Defense in September. You have also seen a number of games where I have blasted the Tarrasch, and particularly the 4.exd5 with 5...Nf6 line, which I started playing in October 2016. Since October 2016, I've had 15 encounters as Black in the French Tarrasch, and the game you are about to see is only the second time that Black has lost. The first time came in the other line with 4.Ngf3, which is analyzed extensively in the September article, and actually came about from the 3...Be7 line, but it directly transposed to the line recommended in that article after 7 moves. The game you are about to see is the first time I have ever lost after 4.exd5 since taking up the 5...Nf6 line rather than the older 5...Nc6 line that I played previously, which I've lost to many times (we won't talk about that!).

The game we are going to look at is actually very instructive for French devotees as it illustrates some of the pitfalls that Black can fall into. White actually played the game fairly well, and while there were times where Black may have been able to claim a very very slight advantage, there was never a time in the game that Black could ever lay claim that he was winning. That said, the game remained totally balanced with the exception of one point in the middle game where Black makes a very educational blunder, and gave White the opportunity to lay claim to a significant advantage, and after White fails to do so and counters with a mistake of his own, we reach a very instructional endgame where Black first realizes that there are two results in the game, draw or loss, and plays for the draw, and does so brilliantly until one move very late in the game with both sides in time trouble that does him in, and White goes on to victory.

For those of you that haven't seen the previous articles surveying the French Tarrasch and games I've posted where Black won in the Tarrasch, I have included the links at the bottom of the article. Also, for those of you that feel depressed after looking at this game, going back to the wins I've posted will cheer you right back up! :-)

But until then, let's see what happened here that put Black in his misery.


Reverse Angle 80, Round 2
W: Henry Hopson (1891)
B: Patrick McCartney (2080)
French Tarrasch

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 c5 4.exd5 exd5 5.Ngf3 Nf6 6.Bb5+ Bd7 7.Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8.O-O Be7 9.dxc5 Nxc5 10.Nb3 Nce4

For further explanation of the opening moves, see the first two articles from the links at the bottom.

11.c3

A slightly unusual move but could sometimes transpose into the second most popular line, which is 11.Nbd4. The most common is 11.Nfd4, leaving the other knight on b3 to cover c5 and threaten to corral the bishop with Nf5. Black will usually counter this with 11...Qd7, to prevent Nf5 at least temporarily, and also to give the bishop the d8-square if it doesn't want to trade itself off for a White knight.

Now, after the move played in the game, we enter a stage where both sides are making decent moves. There may be a few cases where there are other options that are equally good, but neither side makes any spectacular moves or commits any blunders, and the position remains level for quite a while.

11...O-O 12.Nbd4 Bc5 13.h3 Rc8 14.Be3 Nd6 15.Nc2 Nc4 16.Bxc5 Rxc5 17.Qd4 Qc7 18.Rab1 Re8 19.Rfe1 Re4 20.Qd3 h6

This move is better than 20...g6 as it weakens fewer squares, but temporarily, it doesn't not solve the back rank issue because of the specific location of the White queen.

21.Ne3

We reach a critical position in which White has a very concealed threat. Do you see it?

21...Ra5?

Black must eliminate the Knight with 21...Nxe3, after which the position remains equal. The move played in the game doesn't resolve the threat.

22.b4

This move is fairly easy to see. The concealed threat comes if Black takes the pawn on a2.

22...Rxe3

This exchange sacrifice is necessary. 22...Rxa2?? loses to 23.Nxd5 Rxe1+ (or 23...Nxd5 24.Rxe4 +-) 24.Rxe1 Nb2 (24...Nxd5?? allows 25.Re8 Mate!) 25.Qb1 Qc4 26.Re4 and Black's position would be in ruins.

23.fxe3?

White's advantage is gone after this move. Instead, 23.Rxe3 Rxa2 24.Re2 and White has a big advantage.

23...Rxa2 24.Re2 Rxe2 25.Qxe2 Ne4 26.Qd3 Qb6?!

Stronger is 26...Qg3 where it could even be argued that Black has a very slight advantage. After a move like 27.Qe2 (other moves aren't any better), the position after 27...Nxc3 28.Qe1 Qxe1+ 28.Rxe1 Kf8, the position is still technically equal, but things have gotten really ugly for White compared to seven moves prior.

27.Re1 Qe6 28.Nd4 Qe5 29.Ne2 g5 30.Qd4 Qxd4

31.exd4

Instead, 31.cxd4 is stronger. After 31...Nxe3 32.b5 a6 33.bxa6 bxa6 34.Ra1 h5 35.Rxa6 Kg7 36.Rb6 f5 37.Nc1 h4 38.Nd3 g4 39.Ne5 gxh3 40.gxh3 f4 41.Rg6+ Kh7, White has the advantage.

After the move played, Black must realize a number of factors in the position:

• First and foremost, Black does not having winning chances barring a total collapse by White. Even a series of inferior moves by White won't be enough for Black to win. His goal must be to draw.
• When you are the one with the minor piece in a minor piece vs rook imbalance, you must play actively, especially when down in material. A fortress approach is not going to work here.
• Don't be afraid to lose another pawn if you can eliminate all the pawns. King and rook versus king and knight is a theoretical draw.

The next series of moves we see Black predominantly responding to White's threats, and when there is no threat, Black makes an active move.

31...f5 32.Kh2 f4 33.Rf1 Ne3 34.Ra1 a6 35.Ra5 Kf7 36.b5 axb5 37.Rxb5 Nd6 38.Rb6 Ke6 39.Nc1 Nec4 40.Rb4 Kf5 41.Nd3 b6 42.Nf2 h5 43.g4+ fxg3+ 44.Kxg3 Ne4+ 45.Nxe4 Kxe4 46.Rb5

We reach another critical position for Black. It first appears as though Black is in zugzwang where any move drops a pawn. However, there is one right move, one other move that might arguably survive for Black, and a bunch of wrong moves.

46...g4!

Perhaps 46...Nd2 would also work for tactical reasons. For example, 47.Kg2 g4 48.h4 Nf3 49.Kg3 Ng1 50.Rxb6 Ne2+ 51.Kf2 Nxc3 52.Rh6 Kxd4 53.Rxh5 Ke4 54.Rg5 Kf4 55.Ke1 and 47.Rxb6 Kd3 48.Rh6 Kxc3 49.Rxh5 Kxd4 both appear to be survivable for Black, but the game move is easier, especially compared to the 47.Kg2 line given that the Black king is cut off from the White pawn.

That said, other moves lose. For example, 46...Kd3 47.Rxd5 h4+ 48.Kf2 Kxc3 49.Rxg5 Kxd4 50.Rh5 and White is winning.

47.hxg4 hxg4 48.Kxg4 Kd3 49.Kf4 Kxc3 50.Rxd5 b5 51.Ke4

51...b4??

This move loses on the spot! The way to draw is via 51...Nd2+ and after 52.Ke3 or 52.Ke5, Black will return the Knight to c4 via 52...Nc4+. If White continues to toggle between the e5, e4, and e3 squares, a perpetual check will occur. The moment that White leaves these three squares, Black will push the b-pawn to b4 and the game would be a draw. Instead, the upcoming pin by the Rook combined with the location of the White King does Black in.

52.Rc5! Kb3

This is one of the problems with doing this while the White King is on e4. Black doesn't have the d3-square to put the King on, and going to b3 blocks the Black pawn and fatally slows down the advancement of the Black pawn on b4.

53.d5 Nb6 54.Kd3 Ka2 55.Rb5 Nxd5 56.Rxd5 b3 57.Rb5 b2 58.Kc2 1-0


This was a painful game for fans of the French Defense, but it also shows some critical pitfalls that Black must look out for. For those of you that have not previously seen my other articles on the French Tarrasch, the links below will take you there. Black does win all four games across the three articles.

The New Hampshire Open (Specifically Round 2)
Opening Preparation: The French Defense, Tarrasch Variation
Game Analysis: NC Closed Championship - Round 3

Reverse Angle 80

 Author: Grant Oen


The 80th Reverse Angle Tournament hosted 62 players.  They were playing for $850 in guaranteed prizes in three sections: Top, Under 1800, and Under 1400.


Top Section
In the Top section, the top seeds were Daniel "just woke up" Cremisi (2379), Klaus "the legend" Pohl (2200), and Mark "NM" Biernacki (2187), who were joined by 7 other experts in a 21 player field.  Cremisi won the section with 3-0, receiving $175 for his efforts.  Neo Zhu (2170) and Alain Morais (2117) tied for second with 2.5/3, earning $37.50 each.  Jeremy Chen (1910) won the U2000 prize, good for $50.


Under 1800
The Under 1800 section featured 27 players, with top seeds Ali Shirzad (1779), Lendel Robinson (1734), and Danny Cropper (1695).  Andrew "medium rare" Chen (1673) and Jaiden Chuang (1644) each scored a perfect 3-0, receiving $112.50 each.  Kiru Mendez (1540), Nikhil "can I call my dad" Kamisetty (1342), and Arjun Rawal (1328) split the Under 1600 prize, receiving $17 each.


Under 1400
The Under 1400 section was the smallest of the day, with 14 players.  Bhavani Dhulipalla (1343) performed a clean sweep of the section, earning $150.  Pranav Swarna (1367), Saanchi "always texting" Sampath (1326), Adam Lipshay (1271), Rolando Dorbecker (1263), and Matthew Mecia (1127) each scored 2/3.  Mecia earned $50 for the U1200 prize, while the other four players received $19 each.



Upsets - 150 points or more
Under 1800, Round 3 - Nikhil Kamisetty (1342) def. Michael Tedder (1673) - 331 points
Top Section, Round 1 - Jeremy Chen (1910) def. Klaus Pohl (2200) - 290 points
Under 1800, Round 3 - Paige Cook (1340) def. Bradley Juoperri (1476) - 279 points
Top Section, Round 3 - Jeremy Chen (1910) def. George Hechtel (2158) - 248 points
Under 1800, Round 1 - Andrew Lord (1436) def. Michael Tedder (1673) - 237 points
Under 1400, Round 2 - Matthew Mecia (1127) def. Mahesh Padhi (1336) - 209 points
Under 1800, Round 1 - Donald Johnson (1505) def. Danny Cropper (1695) - 190 points
Top Section, Round 2 - Henry Hopson (1891) def. Patrick McCartney (2080) - 189 points
Under 1400, Round 1 - Sarvajith Nalaneelan (1037) def. Dan Boisvert (1218) - 181 points
Under 1800, Round 2 - Nikhil Kamisetty (1342) def. Rithvik Prakki (1523) - 181 points
Under 1400, Round 1 - Noah Sari (1200) def. Pranav Swarna (1367) - 167 points


USCF RATING REPORT


Until next time,
Grant

CCC Norm Events - Norms, Titles, Stats

Last Update: March 31, 2024

The Charlotte Chess Center has organized 32 GM/IM Norm Invitational Round Robin events and 9 swiss events offering FIDE title norms.

• 107 player norms achieved (30 GM, 65 IM, 5 WGM, 7 WIM)
• 54 player titles achieved (11 GM, 16 IM, 1 WGM, 2 WIM, 20 FM, 1 WFM, 4 NM)
• 13 arbiter/organizer titles achieved (5 IA, 5 FA, 3 IO)

CCC Events Schedule

1. March 23-27, 2016 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Peter Giannatos / Jennifer Shahade

• Alexander Velikanov (Wisconsin) earned his 3rd IM norm
• Michael Brown (California) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Safal Bora (Michigan) earned his 1st GM norm
• Matthew Larson (Missouri) earned the FM title

2. March 29 - April 2, 2017 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Grant Oen

• Gauri Shankar (India) earned his 5th IM norm
• John Ludwig (Florida) earned his 1st IM norm
• Tianqi Wang (North Carolina) earned his 1st IM norm
• Benjamin Moon (Georgia) earned the FM title

3. November 22-26, 2017 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Grant Oen

• Andrew Tang (Minnesota) earned his 3rd GM norm
• Raja Panjwani (Canada) earned his 2nd GM norm

4. January 11-15, 2018 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Grant Oen

• Wesley Wang (New York) earned the FM title
• Kevin Wang (Maryland) earned his 5th IM norm and the IM title by rating
• John Burke (New Jersey) earned his 3rd GM norm
• Jennifer Yu (Virginia) earned her 2nd IM norm and her 2nd WGM norm

5. March 28 - April 1, 2018 - USCF Rating Report - no norms achieved



6. June 6-10, 2018 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Daaim Shabazz for The Chess Drum

• Steven Zierk (California) earned his 3rd GM norm
• Kassa Korley (Denmark) earned his 1st GM norm
• Yoon-Young Kim (Connecticut) earned his 1st IM norm
• Brandon Jacobson (New Jersey) earned his 1st IM norm
• Carissa Yip (Massachusetts) earned her 1st IM norm, 1st WGM norm, 3rd WIM norm, and the WIM title

7. August 30 - September 3, 2018 - USCF Rating Report

• Tianqi Wang (North Carolina) earned his 3rd IM norm

8. November 21-25, 2018 - USCF Rating Report

• Nicolas Checa (New York) earned his 3rd GM norm

9. January 17-21, 2019 - USCF Rating Report - Article by GM Michael Brown in American Chess Magazine #10

• Aaron Jacobson (New Jersey) earned his 1st IM norm
• Michael Brown (California) earned his 3rd GM norm

10. March 20-24, 2019 - USCF Rating Report - no norms achieved

2019 North American Junior Championship, June 26-30, 2019 - USCF Rating Report

• Praveen Balakrishnan (Virginia) earned his 1st GM norm
• Sahil Sinha (Maryland) earned the IM title
• Carissa Yip (Massachusetts) earned her 3rd WGM norm and the WGM title
• Sophie Morris-Suzuki (New York) earned the WFM title and her 1st WIM norm

11. June 5-9, 2019 - USCF Rating Report

• Aydin Turgut (Indiana) earned the FM title and his 1st IM norm

12. November 27 - December 1, 2019 - USCF Rating Report

• Omer Reshef (Israel) earned his 1st GM norm
• Eyal Grinberg (Israel) earned his 1st GM norm
• Jennifer Yu (Virginia) earned her 4th IM norm
• Christopher Shen (Ohio) earned his 1st IM norm

13. December 26-31, 2019 - USCF Rating Report

• John Ludwig (Florida) earned his 3rd IM norm and the IM title

2020 Charlotte Open, January 1-5, 2020 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Brandon Jacobson in American Chess Magazine #17

• Brandon Jacobson (New Jersey) earned his 3rd GM norm and the GM title
• Aaron Grabinsky (Missouri) earned his 1st GM norm and the IM title
• Shunkai Peng (Oregon) earned his 4th IM norm

14. January 16-20, 2020 - USCF Rating Report

• Carissa Yip (Massachusetts) earned her 4th IM norm

15. August 19-24, 2020 - USCF Rating Report

• Craig Hilby (California) earned his 2nd GM norm
• Richard Francisco (Georgia) earned the FM title
• Robert Shlyakhtenko (California) earned his 1st IM norm
• Jason Liang (New York) earned his 2nd IM norm

16. September 30 - October 5, 2020 - USCF Rating Report

• Hans Niemann (New York) earned his 3rd GM norm
• Balaji Daggupati (California) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Josiah Stearman (California) earned his 3rd IM norm
• Yuriy Krykun (Ukraine) earned his 3rd IM norm

17. November 25-30, 2020 - USCF Rating Report

• Praveen Balakrishnan (Virginia) earned his 3rd GM norm

2020 North American Junior Championship, December 19-23, 2020 - USCF Rating Report

• Danial Asaria (California) earned the IM title and his 1st GM norm
• Jason Liang (New York) earned his 3rd IM norm
• Anish Vivekananthan (Texas) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Ellen Wang (New York) earned the WIM title and her 1st WGM norm
• Ambica Yellamraju (Texas) earned the WFM title (conditional on rating) and her 1st WIM norm
• Yassamin Ehsani (New York) earned her 1st WIM norm

18. December 26-30, 2020 - USCF Rating Report - no norms achieved

19. January 14-18, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Kyron Griffith (California) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Tianqi Wang (North Carolina) earned his 4th IM norm

20. March 17-21, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Gauri Shankar (India) earned his 6th IM norm

21. May 27-31, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Christopher Yoo (California) earned his 1st GM norm

22. July 28 - August 1, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Lev Paciorkowski (New York) earned the FM title
• Ming Lu (California) earned the FM title and his 1st IM norm
• Andy Woodward (Texas) earned the FM title
• Aydin Turgut (Indiana) earned his 3rd IM norm
• Tianqi Wang (North Carolina) earned his 5th IM norm
• Jason Liang (New York) earned his 4th IM norm
• Joshua Sheng (California) earned his 2nd GM norm

23. September 2-7, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Robert Shlyakhtenko (California) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Sandeep Sethuraman (Arizona) earned his 1st IM norm
• Nikolas Theodorou (Greece) earned his 3rd GM norm and the GM title
• Christopher Yoo (California) earned his 2nd GM norm
• Andrew Hong (California) earned his 3rd GM norm and the GM title

2021 US Masters Championship, November 24-28, 2021 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Christopher Yoo in American Chess Magazine #25, Article by Alex Fishbein in February 2022 Chess Life Magazine

• Rahul Srivatshav Peddi (India) earned his 4th GM norm
• Christopher Yoo (California) earned his 3rd GM norm and the GM title
• Evan Park (Pennsylvania) earned his 1st IM norm
• Deepak Aaron (Georgia) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Vishnu Vanapalli (North Carolina) earned his 1st IM norm

24. December 19-23, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Gauri Shankar (India) earned his 7th IM norm

2021 North American Junior Championship, December 19-23, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Vyom Vidyarthi (California) earned the IM title and his 1st GM norm
• Andy Woodward (Texas) earned his 1st IM norm
• Bach Ngo (Florida) earned his 1st IM norm
• Ellen Wang (New York) earned her 2nd WGM norm
• Sanjana Vittal (New Jersey) earned his 3rd WIM norm
• Yassamin Ehsani (New York) earned her 3rd WIM norm

2021 Charlotte Open, December 26-30, 2021 - USCF Rating Report

• Christopher Yoo (California) earned his 4th GM norm

25. January 13-17, 2022 - USCF Rating Report

• Rochelle Wu (California) earned the FM title
• Anish Vivekananthan (Texas) earned his 3rd IM norm
• Ryo Chen (Texas) earned his 1st IM norm
• Joshua Posthuma (Michigan) earned his 1st IM norm
• Sebastian Boehme (Germany) earned the NM title

26. March 16-20, 2022 - USCF Rating Report - Blog by Grayson Rorrer, Article by Arthur Guo in American Chess Magazine #27

• Joshua Posthuma (Michigan) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Ruiyang Yan (California) earned her 2nd WIM norm
• Bach Ngo (Florida) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Ming Lu (California) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Nico Chasin (New York) earned his 1st IM norm
• Alperen Kanli (Azerbaijan) earned the NM title

27. May 4-8, 2022 - USCF Rating Report - Blog by Grayson Rorrer

• Alexander King (Tennessee) earned the FM title
• Eigen Wang (Florida) earned the FM title
• Tianqi Wang (North Carolina) earned his 6th IM norm

28. July 24-28, 2022 - USCF Rating Report - Article 1 and Article 2 by Bryan Tillis

• Liran Zhou (New York) earned his 3rd IM norm and the IM title
• Nico Chasin (New York) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Terry Luo (Delaware) earned the FM title

29. November 18-22, 2022 - USCF Rating Report - Article 1 and Article 2 by Bryan Tillis, Blog by Grayson Rorrer

• Justus Williams (Missouri) earned his 1st GM norm
• Harshid Kunka (Texas) earned the FM title and his 1st IM norm
• Grayson Rorrer (Texas) earned the FM title and his 1st IM norm
• Liam Putnam (New York) earned his 1st IM norm
• Max Gedajlovic (Canada) earned his 2nd IM norm
• Jakub Fus (Poland) earned his 3rd IM norm and the IM title

2022 US Masters, November 23-27 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Grant Oen, Article by Dean Ippolito in American Chess Magazine #1

• Anthony Atanasov (Canada) earned his 1st IM norm
• Tyson Brady (Virginia) earned the NM title
• Matias Shundi (North Carolina) earned the NM title

30. March 15-19, 2023 - USCF Rating Report

•  Gauri Shankar (India) earned his 8th IM norm

Charlotte Norm Super Swiss - July 9-13, 2023 - USCF Rating Report

• Ethan Sheehan (Georgia) earned the FM title
• Sudarshan Sriniaiyer (Virginia) earned the FM title
• Daniel Xu (Canada) earned the FM title
• Deepak Aaron (Georgia) earned his 4th IM norm
• Gus Huston (New York) earned his 4th IM norm and earned the IM title
• Vishnu Vanapalli (North Carolina) earned his 2nd IM norm

31. November 17-21, 2023 - USCF Rating Report

• William Graif (Canada) earned his 1st IM norm

2023 US Masters, November 22-26 - USCF Rating Report - Article by Daaim Shabazz for The Chess Drum

• Bryce Tiglon (Washington) earned his 2nd GM norm
• Brewington Hardaway (New York) earned his 1st GM norm, 5th IM norm, and the IM title
• Jason Wang (Ohio) earned his 1st GM norm
• Seth Homa (Michigan) earned his 4th IM norm
• Brian Escalante (Peru) earned the GM title
• Aaron Mendes (Canada) earned the FM title

32. March 27-31, 2024 - USCF Rating Report

• Lucius Melillo (Texas) earned the FM title
• Vaseegaran Nandhakumar (Texas) earned the FM title
• Liam Putnam (New York) earned his 3rd IM norm

33. November 22-26, 2024

CCC Events Schedule

International Arbiter, FIDE Arbiter, and International Organizer norms have been awarded at CCC events to: IA/IO Anand Dommalapati, IA/IO Grant Oen, IA/IO Peter Giannatos, IA Korey Kormick, IA Rudy Abate, IA Martha Underwood, IA Maya Myers, IA Mike Hoffpauir, FA Robert Getty, FA Andy Rea, FA GP Sinha, FA Bryan Tillis, NA Walter High, NA William Nash, NA Ali Thompson, and NA Shri Humrudha J (India).

Number of Events Played

303 unique players have played in a CCC Norm Invitational:

29 events - IM Roberto Martin Del Campo, FM Gauri Shankar

21 - GM Tanguy Ringoir

20 - IM Kassa Korley, IM Tianqi Wang

14 - IM Alex Ostrovskiy

13 - GM Abhimanyu Mishra

12 - GM Brandon Jacobson, IM Nikolay Andrianov

11 - GM Titas Stremavicius, FM Robby Adamson

10 - IM Alexander Matros

9 - GM Alonso Zapata, IM Aaron Jacobson, FM Richard Francisco

8 - IM Kevin Wang, IM Alexander Kalikshteyn, IM Jason Liang

7 - GM Magesh Panchanathan, GM Andrew Hong, IM Sahil Sinha, IM Alexey Diulger, IM Vishnuvardhan Arjun, FM Doug Eckert

6 - GM Vladimir Belous, GM Christopher Yoo, GM Arthur Guo, IM Angelo Young, IM John Ludwig, IM Josiah Stearman, IM Craig Hilby, IM Dean Ippolito, FM James Canty, FM Alex Kolay 

5 - GM Michael Brown, GM Steven Zierk, GM Angel Arribas Lopez, GM Kamil Dragun, GM Joshua Sheng, GM Mark Paragua, IM Andy Woodward, IM Denys Shmelov, IM Kyron Griffith, IM Bach Ngo, IM Ryo Chen, FM Benjamin Moon, FM Vincent Tsay, FM Liam Putnam, FM Seth Homa, NM Shelev Oberoi

4 - GM David Berczes, GM Balaji Daggupati, GM Emilio Cordova, GM Cemil Can Ali Marandi, GM Darcy Lima, IM Zurab Javakhadze, IM Carissa Yip,  IM Nikhil Kumar, IM Mark Plotkin, IM Bryce Tiglon, IM David Vigorito, IM Pedro Rodriguez Rivera, IM Nico Chasin, IM Alexander Velikanov, IM Dimitar Mardov, IM Anish Vivekananthan, IM Levan Bregadze, IM Joshua Posthuma, WGM Jennifer Yu, FM Eric Yuhan Li, NM Alperen Kanli, NM Mike Zaloznyy

3 - GM Andrey Gorovets, GM Ashwin Jayaram, GM Nicolas Checa, GM Hans Niemann, GM Praveen Balakrishnan, GM Aleksander Mista, GM Bartlomiej Macieja, GM Alder Escobar Forero, GM David Brodsky, GM Cristhian Cruz, GM Julio Becerra, IM Rohan Ahuja, IM John Bartholomew, IM Farai Mandizha, IM Felix Ynojosa Aponte, IM Joel Banawa, IM Safal Bora, IM Justin Wang, IM Raja Panjwani, IM Oladapo Adu, IM Ming Lu, IM Justus Williams, IM Sandeep Sethuraman, IM Robert Shlyakhtenko, IM Matyas Marek, IM Liran Zhou, IM Alice Lee, IM Gus Huston, FM Wesley Wang, FM Jacob Furfine, FM Christopher Shen, FM Aydin Turgut, FM Tanitoluwa Adewumi, FM Grayson Rorrer, FM Donald Johnson, FM Ryan Amburgy, FM Vishnu Vanapalli, FM Arvind Jayaraman, FM Zachary Dukic, FM Carlos Sandoval Mercado, FM Harshid Kunka, NM Dominique Myers, NM Matan Prilleltensky, NM Julian Proleiko

2 - GM Denes Boros, GM Peter Prohaszka, GM Ulvi Bajarani, GM Alex Fishbein, GM Daniel Fernandez, GM Jacob Aagaard, GM Vladimir Georgiev, GM Fidel Corrales Jimenez, IM Advait Patel, IM Alexander Katz, IM Annie Wang, IM Edward Song, IM Michael Lee, IM Alfonso Almeida Saenz, IM Eddy Tian, IM Michael Mulyar, IM Irakli Beradze, IM Dante Beukes, IM Tamas Petenyi, IM Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte, IM Siddharth Jagadeesh, IM Max Gedajlovic, IM Joseph Levine, IM Martha Fierro, WGM Thalia Cervantes Landeiro, WGM Gabriela Antova, FM Malaku Lorne, FM Justin Paul, FM Ezra Chambers, FM Eugene Yanayt, FM Joshua Colas, FM Akira Nakada, FM Alexander King,  FM Anthony Atanasov, FM Brewington Hardaway, FM Terry Luo, FM Sudarshan Sriniaiyer, FM Nicholas Matta, FM Gabriel Eidelman, NM Aaron Balleisen, NM Vijay Krishnamoorthy, NM Lev Paciorkowski, NM Evan Rosenberg, NM Prateek Mishra, NM Raghav Venkat, NM Nicolas De La Colina, NM Qindong Yang, NM Vaseegaran Nandhakumar, NM James Chirilov, NM James Nguyen

1 - GM Aman Hambleton, GM Andrew Tang, GM Denis Kadric, GM Gergely Antal, GM John Michael Burke, GM Niclas Huschenbeth, GM Nikola Nestorovic, GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu, GM Djurabek Khamrakulov, GM Andrey Stukopin, GM Karen Grigoryan, GM Carlos Hevia Alejano, GM Karthik Venkataraman, GM Hedinn Steingrimsson, GM Valentin Yotov, GM Joshua Ruiz Castillo, GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, GM Alex Lenderman, GM Nikolas Theodorou, GM Jose Gonzalez Garcia, GM Jianchao Zhou, GM Gil Popilski, GM Guillermo Vazquez, GM Razvan Preotu, GM Gergely Kantor, GM Gabor Nagy, GM Bilel Bellahcene, GM Dmitri Komarov, IM Alejandro Montalvo, IM Daniel Gurevich, IM Justin Sarkar, IM Sanjay Ghatti, IM Leonardo Valdes Romero, IM Matthew Larson, IM Michael Kleinman, IM Philip Wang, IM Vignesh Panchanatham, IM Martin Lokander, IM Omer Reshef, IM Eyal Grinberg, IM Eylon Nakar, IM Kacper Drozdowski, IM Cameron Wheeler, IM Atulya Shetty, IM Yuriy Krykun, IM Luis Torres Rosas, IM Levy Rozman, IM Pablo Della Morte, IM Stavroula Tsolakidou, IM Michael Bodek, IM Michael Song, IM Yuanchen Zhang, IM Vyom Vidyarthi, IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux, IM Yunier Leyva Rivera, IM Rohan Talukdar, IM Ekin Baris Ozenir, IM Konstantin Kavutskiy, IM Victor Rodriguez Garcia, IM Julian Estrada Nieto, IM Attila Istvan Csonka, IM Artiom Samsonkin, IM Liordis Quesada Vera, IM Jason Wang, IM Gianmarco Leiva, WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova, WGM Maili-Jade Ouellet, WGM Rochelle Wu, WGM Dina Belenkaya, WGM Maria Malicka, FM Ali Morshedi, FM Eliot Soo-Burrowes, FM Gary Ng, FM Yoon-Young Kim, FM Andy Huang, FM Aravind Kumar, FM Ian Zhao, FM Jouaquin Banawa, FM Isaac Tello Chavez, FM Milind Maiti, FM Danila Poliannikov, FM Mike Ivanov, FM Ruiyang Yan, FM Todd Andrews, FM John Oyeyemi Fawole, FM Ryan Amburgy, FM Eigen Wang, FM Yans Girones Barrios, FM Dharim Bacus, FM Derek Wu, FM Jakub Fus, FM Sriram Krishnakumar, FM Tommy Wen, FM Teddie Wen, FM Bryan Xie, FM Eric Liu, FM Aarav Dengla, FM Isaac Wang, FM William Graif, FM Kush Bhagat, FM Max Rusonik, FM Samrug Narayanan, FM Benjamin Tang, WIM Ewa Harazinska, WIM Ashritha Eswaran, WIM Sila Caglar, WIM Kristel Diaz Charpentier, WIM Yessica Mendez Tovar, WFM Uyanga Byambaa, WFM Ana Shamatava, WFM Mairebis Castillo Coca, NM Siddharth Banik, NM Mika Brattain,  NM Karthik Rangarajan, NM Kapish Potula, NM Craig Jones, NM Sebastian Boehme, NM Mitch Fishbein, NM Joshua Avila Rodriguez, NM Theodore Slade, NM Ethan Sheehan, NM Paul Iinuma, NM Aiden Reiss, NM Jiangwei Yu, NM Stephen Willy, NM Nikash Vemparala, NM Ethan Song, NM Joseph Wan, NM Daniel Girsh, NM Ansh Shah, NM Advaith Karthik, NM Ethan Guo, NM Andrew Jiang, NM Lucius Melillo, NM Graham Horobetz, NM Sibo Wu, Alejandro Lima Martinez, Oluwaseun Bisiriyu-Salam

54 Federations from North America, Central America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia have been represented at CCC Norm Invitationals: Algeria, Armenia, Argentina, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burundi, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, England, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, India, Israel, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Moldova, Mongolia, Mexico, Namibia, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Scotland, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine, United States, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.

Most Represented Federations:

• United States - 165 players
• Canada - 20
• India - 11
• Mexico - 8
• Cuba, Hungary, Poland - 7

30 states have been represented at CCC Norm Invitationals: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin.

Top States (USA players only):

• Texas - 45 players
• California, New York - 32
• Missouri - 16
• North Carolina - 15
• New Jersey - 15

Most common first names - all norm invitationals (minimum 3):

• Alex(ander) - 11
• Michael - 8
• Joshua - 6
• John - 4
• Daniel - 3
• David - 3
• Ethan - 3
• Jacob - 3
• James - 3
• Justin - 3
• Nico(las) - 3
• Andrew - 3

GM Sections with the most future GMs

• Fall 2020 GM A: 4 - Hans Niemann, Balaji Daggupati, Daniel Fernandez, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Thanksgiving 2020 GM A: 4 - Praveen Balakrishnan, Andrew Hong, Joshua Sheng, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Spring 2016 GM: 3 - Michael Brown, Steven Zierk, Nicolas Checa
• Winter 2018 GM B: 3 - John Michael Burke, Steven Zierk, Brandon Jacobson
• Spring 2018 GM: 3 - Michael Brown, Steven Zierk, Brandon Jacobson
• Summer 2019 GM: 3 - Andrew Hong, Christopher Yoo, Brandon Jacobson
• Holiday 2019 GM: 3 - Brandon Jacobson, Praveen Balakrishnan, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Winter 2020 GM: 3 - Brandon Jacobson, Andrew Hong, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Holiday 2020 GM: 3 - Joshua Sheng, Abhimanyu Mishra, Balaji Daggupati
• Winter 2021 GM: 3 - Balaji Daggupati, Arthur Guo, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Memorial Day 2021 GM: 3 - Christopher Yoo, Arthur Guo, Daniel Fernandez
• Labor Day 2021 GM B: 3 - Nikolas Theodorou, Andrew Hong, Joshua Sheng

IM Sections with the most future GM/IMs

• Spring 2018 IM: 5 - Christopher Yoo, John Ludwig, Sahil Sinha, Tianqi Wang, Annie Wang
• Spring 2017 IM C: 4 - Edward Song, Andrew Hong, Sanjay Ghatti, Yuanchen Zhang
• Summer 2018 IM C: 4 - Brandon Jacobson, Arthur Guo, Alexander Velikanov, Josiah Stearman
• Fall 2020 IM: 4 - Yuriy Krykun, Josiah Stearman, Alexander Velikanov, Anish Vivekananthan
• Thanksgiving 2020 IM: 4 - Aaron Jacobson, Robert Shlyakhtenko, Nikhil Kumar, Joshua Posthuma
• Holiday 2020 IM: 4 - Alexander Velikanov, Jason Liang, Nico Chasin, Anish Vivekananthan
• Spring 2016 IM: 3 - Hans Niemann, Alexander Velikanov, Matthew Larson
• Spring 2017 IM B: 3 - John Ludwig, Tianqi Wang, David Brodsky
• Fall 2017 IM: 3 - John Ludwig, Sahil Sinha, Christopher Yoo
• Winter 2018 IM: 3 - Andrew Hong, Aaron Jacobson, Tianqi Wang
• Summer 2018 IM D: 3 - Carissa Yip, Tianqi Wang, Balaji Daggupati
• Labor Day 2018 IM: 3 - Hans Niemann, Annie Wang, Aaron Jacobson
• Fall 2018 IM: 3 - Aaron Jacobson, Nikhil Kumar, Sahil Sinha
• Summer 2019 IM B: 3 - Sahil Sinha, Nikhil Kumar, Abhimanyu Mishra
• Summer 2019 IM C: 3 - John Ludwig, Aaron Jacobson, Jason Wang
• Winter 2021 IM: 3 - Kyron Griffith, Tianqi Wang, Anish Vivekananthan
• Spring 2021 IM: 3 - Tianqi Wang, Kyron Griffith, Nico Chasin
• Spring 2022 IM E: 3 - Nico Chasin, Andy Woodward, Ryo Chen
• Spring 2022 IM D: 3 - Ming Lu, Alice Lee, Gus Huston

Highest FIDE Ratings (at time of CCC Norm Invitational)

1. GM Alex Lenderman 2621
2. GM Jianchao Zhou 2605
3. GM Kamil Dragun 2586
4-5. GM Emilio Cordova, GM Peter Prohaszka 2581
6. GM Aleksander Mista 2574
7. GM (then IM) Nikolas Theodorou 2569

8. GM Emilio Cordova 2568
9. GM Andrey Stukopin 2565

10. GM Titas Stremavicius 2563

Highest FIDE Ratings by non-GMs (at time of CCC Norm Invitational)

1. IM Nikolas Theodorou 2569

2. IM Guillermo Vazquez 2536

3. IM Michael Brown 2524
4. IM Praggnanandhaa R 2515
5. IM John Michael Burke 2514
6. IM Michael Brown 2505
7. IM Djurabek Khamrakulov, IM Praveen Balakrishnan 2498
8. IM Michael Brown 2497
9. IM Steven Zierk, IM Andrew Tang 2496

10. IM Nicolas Checa 2495

Highest peak FIDE Ratings by CCC Norm Invitational players (achieved at any time)

1. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu 2747
2. GM Hans Niemann 2706
3. GM Jianchao Zhou 2669
4. GM Karen Grigoryan 2666
5. GM Emilio Cordova 2660
6. GM Alex Lenderman 2654
7. GM Bartlomiej Macieja 2653
8. GM Niclas Huschenbeth 2628
9. GM Peter Prohaszka 2626
10. GM Kamil Dragun, GM Aleksander Mista 2625

CCC Norm Invitational players who have been ranked in the World's top 100 (achieved at any time)

1. GM Praggnanandhaa Rameshbabu #13
2. GM Hans Niemann #34
3. GM Bartlomiej Macieja #40
4. GM Alonso Zapata #49
5. GM Jianchao Zhou #67
6. GM Karen Grigoryan #71
7. GM Emilio Cordova #94
8. GM Alex Lenderman #97
9. GM Mark Paragua #99

Current "Top 5" USA Juniors who have played in CCC Norm Invitationals (March 2024 USCF ratings)

• Overall Under 21
• #1 GM Hans Niemann (2748) - 3 events, earned 3rd GM norm 
• #3 GM Abhimanyu Mishra (2714) - 11 events
• #4 GM Christopher Yoo (2660) - 6 events, earned 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th GM norms
• #5 GM Brandon Jacobson (2652) - 12 events, earned 1st IM norm and 3rd GM Norm
• Top Girls Under 21
• #1 IM Carissa Yip (2498) - 4 events, earned 3rd WIM norm, 1st and 3rd WGM norms, 1st and 4th IM norms
• #2 IM Alice Lee (2444) - 3 events
• #4 FM Ruiyang Yan (2349) - 1 event, earned 2nd WIM norm
• #5 WGM Rochelle Wu (2331) - 1 event, earned FM title
• Top 18 Year Olds
• #1 IM Justin Wang (2587) - 3 events
• #2 GM Balaji Daggupati (2567) - 4 events, earned 2nd IM norm
• #4 IM Robert Shlyakhtenko (2470) - 3 events, earned 1st and 2nd IM norms
• #5 IM Gus Huston (2460) - 3 events - earned 4th IM norm and the IM title by rating
• Top 17 Year Olds
• #1 GM Christopher Yoo (2660) - 6 events, earned 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th GM norms
• #2 GM Arthur Guo (2611) - 6 events
• #3 IM Jason Wang (2563) - 1 event
• #5 IM Nico Chasin (2522) - 4 events, earned 1st and 2nd IM norms
• Top 16 Year Olds
• #2 FM Terry Luo (2417) - 2 events, earned FM title
• =3 FM Vishnu Vanapalli (2392) - 3 events, earned 1st and 2nd IM norms
• =3 FM Eric Yuhan Li (2392) - 4 events
• Top 15 Year Olds
• #1 GM Abhimanyu Mishra (2714) - 11 events
• #2 IM Dimitar Mardov (2535) - 3 events
• #3 IM Liran Zhou (2459) - 3 events, earned 3rd IM norm
• #5 IM Bach Ngo (2440) - 5 events, earned 1st and 2nd IM norms
• Top 14 Year Olds
• #1 FM Brewington Hardaway (2525) - 2 events, earned 5th IM norm, IM title, and 1st GM norm
• #3 IM Alice Lee (2444) - 3 events
• #4 FM Eric Liu (2435) - 1 event
• #5 FM Harshid Kunka (2378) - 2 events, earned FM title and 1st IM norm
• Top 13 Year Olds
• #1 IM Andy Woodward (2583) - 3 events, earned 1st IM norm
• #2 FM Tanitoluwa Adewumi (2436) - 3 events
• #3 NM Andrew Jiang (2323) - 1 event
• #4 FM Benjamin Tang (2290) - 1 event
• Top 11 Year Olds
• #2 NM Ethan Guo (2248) - 1 event

Player, Arbiter, and Organizer Titles Achieved in CCC Norm Events (final norm or rating achieved) - USA players unless otherwise noted:

1. GM Andrew Tang
2. GM John Michael Burke
3. GM Steven Zierk
4. GM Nicolas Checa
5. GM Michael Brown
6. GM Brandon Jacobson
7. GM Hans Niemann
8. GM Andrew Hong
9. GM Nikolas Theodorou (Greece)
10. GM Christopher Yoo
11. GM Brian Escalante (Peru) - pending FIDE approval
12. IM Kevin Wang
13. IM Sahil Sinha
14. IM John Ludwig
15. IM Aaron Grabinsky
16. IM Josiah Stearman
17. IM Yuriy Krykun (Ukraine)
18. IM Jason Liang
19. IM Danial Asaria
20. IM Vyom Vidyarthi
21. IM Tianqi Wang
22. IM Anish Vivekananthan
23. IM Jakub Fus (Poland)
24. IM Gus Huston
25. IM Liran Zhou
26. IM Alexander Velikanov
27. IM Brewington Hardaway - pending FIDE approval
28. WGM Carissa Yip
29. WIM Carissa Yip
30. WIM Ellen Wang
31. FM Matthew Larson
32. FM Benjamin Moon
33. FM Wesley Wang
34. FM Aydin Turgut
35. FM Richard Francisco
36. FM Lev Paciorkowski - unclaimed
37. FM Ming Lu - unclaimed
38. FM Andy Woodward
39. FM Rochelle Wu
40. FM Alexander King
41. FM Eigen Wang
42. FM Terry Luo
43. FM Grayson Rorrer
44. FM Harshid Kunka
45. FM Ethan Sheehan - unclaimed
46. FM Sudarshan Sriniayer
47. FM Daniel Xu (Canada)
48. FM Aaron Mendes (Canada)
49. FM Lucius Melillo - unclaimed
50. FM Vaseegaran Nandhakumar - unclaimed
51. WFM Sophie Morris-Suzuki
52. NM Alperen Kanli (Azerbaijan)
53. NM Sebastian Boehme (Germany)
54. NM Tyson Brady
55. NM Matias Shundi
56. IA Grant Oen
57. IA Peter Giannatos
58. IA Anand Dommalapati
59. IA Maya Myers
60. IA Martha Underwood
61. FA Grant Oen
62. FA Peter Giannatos
63. FA Maya Myers
64. FA Robert Getty
65. FA Bryan Tillis
66. IO Grant Oen
67. IO Peter Giannatos
68. IO Anand Dommalapati

107 Player Norms Achieved in CCC Norm Events - USA players unless otherwise noted:

GM Norms (30)

• Safal Bora - 1st
• Andrew Tang - 3rd
• Raja Panjwani (Canada) - 2nd
• John Burke - 3rd
• Steven Zierk - 3rd
• Kassa Korley (Denmark) - 1st
• Nicolas Checa - 3rd
• Michael Brown - 3rd
• Praveen Balakrishnan - 1st
• Omer Reshef (Israel) - 1st
• Eyal Grinberg (Israel) - 1st
• Brandon Jacobson - 3rd
• Aaron Grabinsky - 1st
• Craig Hilby - 2nd
• Hans Niemann - 3rd
• Praveen Balakrishnan - 3rd
• Danial Asaria - 1st
• Christopher Yoo - 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
• Joshua Sheng - 2nd
• Nikolas Theodorou (Greece) - 3rd
• Andrew Hong - 3rd
• Rahul Srivatshav Peddi (India) - 4th
• Vyom Vidyarthi - 1st
• Justus Williams - 1st
• Bryce Tiglon - 2nd
• Brewington Hardaway - 1st
• Jason Wang - 1st

IM Norms (65)

• Alexander Velikanov - 3rd
• Michael Brown - 2nd
• Gauri Shankar (India) - 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th
• John Ludwig - 1st, 3rd
• Tianqi Wang - 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th
• Kevin Wang - 5th
• Jennifer Yu - 2nd
• Yoon-Young Kim - 1st
• Brandon Jacobson - 1st
• Carissa Yip - 1st, 4th
• Aaron Jacobson - 1st
• Aydin Turgut - 1st, 3rd
• Jennifer Yu - 4th
• Christopher Shen - 1st
• Shunkai Peng - 4th
• Robert Shlyakhtenko - 1st, 2nd
• Jason Liang - 2nd, 3rd, 4th
• Balaji Daggupati - 2nd
• Josiah Stearman - 3rd
• Yuriy Krykun (Ukraine) - 3rd
• Anish Vivekananthan - 2nd, 3rd
• Kyron Griffith - 2nd
• Ming Lu - 1st, 2nd
• Sandeep Sethuraman - 1st
• Evan Park - 1st
• Deepak Aaron - 2nd, 4th
• Vishnu Vanapalli - 1st, 2nd
• Andy Woodward - 1st
• Bach Ngo - 1st, 2nd
• Ryo Chen - 1st
• Joshua Posthuma - 1st, 2nd
• Nico Chasin - 1st, 2nd
• Liran Zhou - 3rd
• Harshid Kunka - 1st
• Grayson Rorrer - 1st
• Liam Putnam - 1st, 3rd
• Max Gedajlovic (Canada) - 2nd
• Jakub Fus (Poland) - 3rd
• Anthony Atanasov (Canada) - 1st
• Gauri Shankar (India) - 8th
• Gus Huston - 4th
• William Graif - 1st
• Brewington Hardaway - 5th
• Seth Homa - 4th

WGM Norms (5)

• Jennifer Yu - 2nd
• Carissa Yip - 1st, 3rd
• Ellen Wang - 1st, 2nd

WIM Norms (7)

• Carissa Yip - 3rd
• Sophie Morris-Suzuki - 1st
• Ambica Yellamraju - 1st
• Yassamin Ehsani - 1st, 3rd
• Sanjana Vittal - 3rd
• Ruiyang Yan - 2nd

CCC Norm Invitational Stats

Most events played:

• IM Roberto Martin Del Campo, FM Gauri Shankar: 29
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 21
• IM Kassa Korley, IM Tianqi Wang: 20
• IM Alex Ostrovskiy: 14
• GM Brandon Jacobson, IM Nikolay Andrianov: 12

Most invitationals won (clear or tied first place):

• GM Titas Stremavicius: 6
• IM Tianqi Wang: 5
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 4
• GM Vladimir Belous, GM Christopher Yoo, IM Jason Liang: 3
• GM Michael Brown, GM David Berczes, GM Hans Niemann, GM Bartlomiej Macieja, GM Vladimir Georgiev, IM John Ludwig, IM Zurab Javakhadze, IM Roberto Martin Del Campo, IM Alex Ostrovskiy, IM Alexander Matros, IM Ming Lu, IM Nico Chasin, IM Alexander Velikanov, IM Robert Shlyakhtenko, IM Andy Woodward, IM Joshua Posthuma, FM Aydin Turgut: 2
• GM Denis Kadric, GM John Michael Burke, GM Andrew Tang, GM Niclas Huschenbeth, GM Nicolas Checa, GM Steven Zierk, GM Angel Arribas Lopez, GM Carlos Hevia Alejano, GM Alonso Zapata, GM Karen Grigoryan, GM Karthik Venkataraman, GM Mark Paragua, GM Kamil Dragun, GM Aleksander Mista, GM Peter Prohaszka, GM Abhimanyu Mishra, GM Praveen Balakrishnan, GM Andrew Hong, GM Nikolas Theodorou, GM Alex Lenderman, GM Joshua Sheng, GM Jianchao Zhou, GM Gil Popilski, GM Gabor Nagy, GM Razvan Preotu, GM Fidel Corrales Jimenez, GM Arthur Guo, GM Christian Cruz, IM Safal Bora, IM Felix Ynojosa Aponte, IM Kevin Wang, IM Rohan Ahuja, IM John Bartholomew, IM Kassa Korley, IM Raja Panjwani, IM Omer Reshef, IM Eyal Grinberg, IM Carissa Yip, IM Craig Hilby, IM Josiah Stearman, IM Yuriy Krykun, IM Nikolay Andrianov, IM Nikolay Andrianov, IM Kyron Griffith, IM Dimitar Mardov, IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux, IM Michael Mulyar, IM Tamas Petenyi, IM Justus Williams, IM Liordis Quesada Vera, IM Ryo Chen, IM Sandeep Sethuraman, IM Gianmarco Leiva, IM Liran Zhou, IM Bach Ngo, IM Aaron Jacobson, IM Levan Bregadze, WGM Jennifer Yu, FM Gauri Shankar, FM Yoon-Young Kim, FM Christopher Shen, FM Robby Adamson, FM Liam Putnam, FM Grayson Rorrer, FM Terry Luo, FM Carlos Sandoval Mercado, FM Harshid Kunka, FM William Graif: 1

Highest cumulative average opponent FIDE rating:

• IM Levy Rozman: 2467
• GM Andrey Stukopin: 2458
• GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, NM Mika Brattain: 2455
• IM Michael Bodek: 2454
• IM Denys Shmelov, IM Luis Carlos Torres, WGM Gulrukhbegim Tokhirjonova: 2452

Highest cumulative performance rating:

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: 3037
• GM Niclas Huschenbeth: 2649
• GM Alex Lenderman: 2633
• GM Nikolas Theodorou: 2609
• IM Omer Reshef: 2605

Most wins against GMs:

• IM Kassa Korley: 9
• GM Andrew Hong, GM Joshua Sheng: 5
• GM Michael Brown, GM Brandon Jacobson, GM Abhimanyu Mishra, GM Arthur Guo, IM Justus Williams, IM Tianqi Wang, FM Gauri Shankar: 4

Most points against GMs:

• IM Kassa Korley: 26.5
• FM Gauri Shankar: 22
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 21
• IM Alex Ostrovskiy: 13.5
• GM Brandon Jacobson: 13

Highest plus score against GMs:

• GM Joshua Sheng: +4
• GM Michael Brown, IM Alexander Katz, IM Raja Panjwani: +3
• GM John Michael Burke, GM Tanguy Ringoir, GM Andrew Hong, GM Kamil Dragun, GM Jacob Aagaard, IM Advait Patel: +2

Longest Win Streak:

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: 9
• GM Brandon Jacobson, GM Hans Niemann, GM Peter Prohaszka, GM Ulvi Bajarani, GM Alex Lenderman, GM David Brodsky, GM Tanguy Ringoir, IM Roberto Martin Del Campo, IM Andy Woodward, IM Gianmarco Leiva, IM Levan Bregadze: 5
• GM Alonso Zapata, GM Christopher Yoo, GM Balaji Daggupati, GM Alonso Zapata, IM Alex Ostrovskiy, IM Eyal Grinberg, IM Kassa Korley, IM Cameron Wheeler, IM Carissa Yip, IM Alexander Matros, IM Tianqi Wang, IM Ming Lu, IM Nico Chasin, IM Ryo Chen, IM Sandeep Sethuraman, FM Aydin Turgut, FM Richard Francisco, FM James Canty, FM Harshid Kunka, FM William Graif: 4

Longest Draw Streak:

• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 17
• IM Nikolay Andrianov: 16
• GM Daniel Fernandez, IM Roberto Martin Del Campo: 10
• IM Anish Vivekananthan: 9
• GM Alder Escobar Forero, GM Andrey Gorovets, GM Joshua Sheng, IM Kassa Korley, FM Robby Adamson: 8

Longest Undefeated Streak:

• GM Titas Stremavicius: 50 games (current)
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 37
• GM Michael Brown: 28 (current)
• IM Tianqi Wang: 27
• IM Alexander Matros: 26

Largest FIDE rating gain in one CCC Norm Invitational:

• IM Ming Lu: +131.6 (Summer 2021 IM D)
• NM Prateek Mishra: +121.6 (Spring 2022 IM B)
• FM Donald Johnson: +112.4 (May 2022 IM C)
• FM Vishnu Vanapalli: +106 (Winter 2022 IM C)
• NM Ethan Guo: +105.2 (Fall 2023 IM C)

Largest cumulative FIDE rating gain (all CCC Norm Invitationals):

• IM Tianqi Wang: +240.2 points
• IM Aaron Jacobson: +194.6
• IM Vishnuvardhan Arjun: +163.4
• FM Liam Putnam: +153
• IM Ming Lu: +139

Largest US Chess rating gain in one CCC Norm Invitational:

• NM Ethan Song: +170 (Fall 2023 IM C)
• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: +113 (Summer 2022 IM C)
• FM Zachary Dukic: +93 (Summer 2019 IM B)
• IM Sandeep Sethuraman: +57 (Labor Day 2021 IM C)
• NM Prateek Mishra: +52 (Spring 2022 IM E)

Largest cumulative US Chess rating gain (all CCC Norm Invitationals):

• NM Ethan Song: +170 points
• IM Tianqi Wang: +137
• FM Zachary Dukic: +122
• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: +113
• IM Aaron Jacobson: +104

Most cumulative game points:

• IM Roberto Martin Del Campo: 126
• FM Gauri Shankar: 120
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 113.5
• IM Tianqi Wang: 97.5
• IM Kassa Korley: 87

Most wins:

• IM Roberto Martin Del Campo: 55
• IM Tianqi Wang, FM Gauri Shankar: 52
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 46
• IM Kassa Korley: 41
• IM Aaron Jacobson: 34

Most draws:

• IM Roberto Martin Del Campo: 142
• FM Gauri Shankar: 136
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 135
• IM Kassa Korley: 92
• IM Tianqi Wang: 91

Biggest cumulative plus score:

• GM Tanguy Ringoir: +38
• GM Titas Stremavicius: +21
• IM Tianqi Wang, IM Aaron Jacobson : +15
• GM Michael Brown, IM Levan Bregadze: +14
• GM Kamil Dragun: +13

Highest score percentage:

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: 100%
• GM Gabor Nagy: 88.9%
• IM Gianmarco Leiva: 83.3%
• GM Niclas Huschenbeth, GM Alex Lenderman, FM Yoon-Young Kim, FM William Graif: 77.8%
• GM Andrew Tang, GM John Michael Burke, GM Denis Kadric, GM Carlos Hevia Alejano, GM Ulvi Bajarani, GM Nikolas Theodorou, GM Vladimir Georgiev, GM Gil Popilski, GM Dmitri Komarov, IM Omer Reshef, IM Eyal Grinberg: 72.2%

Highest win percentage:

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux: 100%
• GM Gabor Nagy: 77.8%
• IM Gianmarco Leiva, FM Yoon-Young Kim, FM William Graif: 66.7%
• IM Ming Lu: 59.3%
• GM Andrew Tang, GM Karen Grigoryan, GM John Michael Burke, GM Carlos Hevia Alejano, GM Niclas Huschenbeth, GM Alex Lenderman, IM Matthew Larson, IM Eyal Grinberg: 55.6%

Highest draw percentage:

• GM Guillermo Vazquez: 88.9%
• IM Nikolay Andrianov: 83.3%
• GM Andrey Stukopin, GM Hedinn Steingrimsson, GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, GM Gergely Kantor, IM Tamas Petenyi: FM Aravind Kumar: 77.8%
• GM Daniel Fernandez, IM Michael Mulyar: 72.2%
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 71.4%

Lowest draw percentage: 

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemiexu, FM Mike Ivanov: 0%
• IM Matthew Larson, WGM Dina Belenkaya, FM Jouaquin Banawa, FM Kush Bhagat, WFM Ana Shamatava, WFM Uyanga Byambaa, NM Karthik Rangarajan, NM Paul Iinuma, NM Theodore Slade, NM Kapish Potula, NM Stephen Willy: 11.1%
• WM Gabriela Antova, NM Evan Rosenberg: 16.7%
• IM Ming Lu: 18.5%

Lowest loss percentage:

• GM Denis Kadric, GM Niclas Huschenbeth, GM Hedinn Steingrimsson, GM Thomas Roussel-Roozmon, GM Nikolas Theodorou, GM Alex Lenderman, GM Gil Popilski, GM Guillermo Vazquez, GM Vladimir Georgiev, GM Gabor Nagy, GM Dmitri Komarov, IM Omer Reshef, IM Yuriy Krykun, IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux, IM Liordis Quesada Vera, IM Gianmarco Leiva, FM Isaac Wang: 0%
• GM Julio Becerra: 3.7%
• GM Tanguy Ringoir: 4.2%
• GM Kamil Dragun: 4.4%
• GM Ulvi Bajarani, GM Bartlomiej Macieja, IM Tamas Petenyi: 5.6%

Highest decisive game percentage:

• IM Shawn Rodrigue-Lemieux, FM Mike Ivanov: 100%
• IM Matthew Larson, WGM Dina Belenkaya, FM Jouaquin Banawa, FM Kush Bhagat, WFM Uyanga Byambaa, WFM Ana Shamatava, NM Karthik Rangarajan, NM Kapish Potula, NM Theodore Slade, NM Paul Iinuma, NM Stephen Willy: 88.9%
• WM Gabriela Antova, NM Evan Rosenberg: 83.3%
• IM Ming Lu: 81.5%

 Longest games:

• NM Mika Brattain vs. IM Kassa Korley, CCC Summer 2018 GM B, 1/2 - 189 moves
• FM Donald Johnson vs. FM John Fawole Oyeyemi, CCC May 2022 IM C, 1-0 - 184 moves
• IM Irakli Beradze vs. IM Alex Ostrovskiy, CCC Labor Day 2021 GM A, 1/2 - 150 moves
• FM Liam Putnam vs. IM Pablo Della Morte, CCC Labor Day 2021 IM C, 1/2 - 150 moves
• FM Ryan Amburgy vs IM Olivier-Kenta Chiku-Ratte, CCC Spring 2023 IM C, 1/2 - 143 moves

Opening Preparation: Classical King's Indian - The Critical Piece!

Happy New Year everyone! We will be starting 2018 with an article on the Classical King's Indian, and more specifically, talking about one critical piece that means the world to Black.

When we first learn the game of chess, we are taught that each piece has its own "value" attached to it. Giving the pawn a value of 1, the knight and bishop are designated a value of 3, the rook is given the value of 5, the queen a value of 9, and the king is not assigned a value because the king is your life.

Well, what you are about to see here is that in certain cases, you can throw these numerical values right out the window, and in this case, we are going to talk about the re-evaluation of the Black pieces in the Classical King's Indian. This is not a complete survey of the Classical King's Indian, and the line we will be looking at is considered one of the most popular lines in modern theory. We will start by discussing the value of Black's pieces, and then I will show you two games. One played between a couple of 2400 players, and another between a couple of experts, showing some of the typical errors made at lower levels of play, but it still illustrates the value of Black's pieces in this line.

The line we will be talking about comes after the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.a4, which leads to the following position:

So now what we need to do is evaluate each piece of Black's. The center is completely blocked, and it is fairly clear what each side wants to do. White has all of his pieces pointing toward the queenside, and his major break is with the c-pawn to c5. If he achieves this and trades on d6, Black will have a clear weakness on d6. Black, on the other hand, will be looking to continue to advance his kingside and attack the White king. The major break is with the move ...g4. It is very rare that White will want to take the pawn on g4 as it will severely weaken e4 and allow Black to advance the f-pawn if tactical possibilities exist. This will often lead to Black being able to play ...g3, after which White will have to decide between trading on g3, which might win him a pawn in some cases, but will strip a good amount of the cover on the White king. The other option is to advance h3, attempting to block the entire position. So given these facts, let's look at the Black pieces and evaluate their importance.

First, with the fact that Black is going for the White king, the queen plays a vital role in Black's attack.

Next, the King's rook can often play a vital role. If White takes the pawn on g4, then the rook can contribute to a successful ...f3 push by Black. It can also shift itself to g7 or h7 if White opens lines up, such as in the lines when he plays hxg3 instead of h3.

With the closed nature of the position, the knights can play a vital role in getting to the White king as they don't need open lines to become useful.

The remaining Black pieces on the board are the ones whose value does not match that of normal principles. For example, the Rook on a8 plays almost no role at all in this position. Many of the other Black pieces sit for a long time on the back rank, leaving the rook on a8 blocked in by his own pieces, starting at other Black pieces and pawns sitting right in his way.

The bishops are the key here for Black. Both bishops appear to do very little given the nature of the position. That said, first let's look at the dark-squared bishop. It is clearly a bad bishop with all of Black's pawns also sitting on dark squares, and while it doesn't do much in the first game we will look at, it can very often play a vital role in covering the d6 weakness, where Black advances the rook to f7 and moves the bishop down to f8 to cover d6. Not always a necessary move, but better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

This takes us to the most critical piece on the board for Black. The light-squared bishop. This piece is so valuable to Black that he will often be willing to give up the a8-rook just to preserve the light-squared bishop. Now you might be asking yourself "What makes this piece so important?" Well, we discussed prior that Black will often play ...g4 and ...g3, and that White can answer that with h3, completely blocking the position. Black needs his queen and knights to get at the White king, and it would be almost impossible for a Black rook to get to any of the White pawns on the kingside to break the barrier. That is where the light-squared bishop comes into play. It must be timed right, but the main way for Black to break through at the White king is via the sacrifice of the light-squared bishop on h3. If this piece is traded off, then the decision for White is extremely simple when Black tries to break with his pawns. Close the position with h3! With this bishop on the board, White has to be extremely careful about such a breakthrough.


So to summerize:

• Black's queen, f8-rook, and both knights maintain their normal value for a closed position.
• Black's a8-rook has very little value in this variation unless the game reaches an endgame.
• Black's dark-squared bishop can play a very vital defensive role in certain circumstances, but otherwise is usually staring at his own pawns.
• Black's light-squared bishop plays the most vital role in Black's entire attack, and this piece can easily be viewed as more valuable than a rook, and often times the a8-rook will sacrifice itself simply to preserve the bishop on c8.

Let's take a look at a couple of games.

W: Marcin Dziuba (2460)
B: Jakub Czakon (2461)
Koszalin, 2005

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.a4 a5

This is considered the main response from Black, looking to hinder White's queenside expansion. The other main alternative is to ignore White's operations on the Queenside and play 13...Ng6, more in the spirit of the King's Indian, after which 14.a5 Rf7 leads to two options for White. He can play the immediate 15.c5, which sacrifices a pawn after 15...Nxc5 16.Bxc5 dxc5, but breaks up the Black pawn chain and White figures the acceleration in his attack along with the shattered Black pawn structure compensates for the pawn lost. The alternative option is the safer, though slower, 15.b4, setting up 16.c5. In the second game, we will be looking at a less than ideal defense by Black where he ignores the White queenside, but given how complicated an opening the King's Indian Defense is, at the amateur level, such error end up being far less than fatal. At the GM level, White would probably have won the next game.

14.Nd3 b6

Continuing to try to hinder White's expansion on the queenside.

15.b4 axb4

White has a major decision to make here. The best option is probably to take the pawn immediately with the knight. That said, also tempting is the move played in the game.

16.Nb5

White's idea is simple. He figures that it would be better if he could take the b-pawn with his bishop instead of with his knight so that the bishop and the knight both eye c5 and White may be able to weaken Black's queenside enough to make this breakthrough possible. That said, there is a major downside to this. Playing the knight to b5 early on like this makes the move ...g4 easier to achieve, especially after the knight on d7 returns to f6, as if White takes on g4, the e4-pawn would be hanging with the knight no longer on c3. This often saves Black time as he doesn't have to play ...h5 to prepare the ...g4 push.

16...Nf6

Black takes advantage of White's early knight hop and plays this move to prepare the ...g4 break.

17.Be1

White continues to go after the b-pawn with the bishop.

17...g4!

Black pounces on the opportunity!

18.Bxb4 g3

And now we see another downside to using the bishop to recapture on b4 instead of the knight. Black is able to play this move without it even costing him a pawn, which makes trading pawns on g3 even less appetizing than it would if White still had his bishop on e1 where he could at least gain a pawn for his suffering of the opening of his king.

19.h3

And so White closes the kingside, or so he thinks!

19...Bxh3!

Remember how we said that the light-squared bishop is Black's most critical piece on the board? Here we see this critical piece do his thing. This is the only way for Black to pry open the White king if White is unwilling to do it voluntarily.

20.gxh3

White has no other choice. Not taking the bishop basically admits defeat and gives Black a critical pawn for nothing.

20...Qd7

Immediately hitting on the weakness at h3.

21.Qc2

This is White's best move, guarding via the second rank. Note that 21.Kg2 doesn't work. After 21...Ng6 22.Rh1 Nh4+ 23.Kg1 Nxe4! 24.fxe4 f3 and now both 25.Bxf3 Rxf3 26.Ne1 Qf7 27.Nxf3 Nxf3+ and 25.Bd2 f2+ 26.Nxf2 Rxf2 27.Rh2 gxh2+ 28.Kxf2 Qxh3 29.Qh1 Rf8+ 30.Ke1 Qg2 31.Bf3 Nxf3+ are winning for Black.

21...Ng6!

The knight is possibly headed for h4, taking the g2-square away from the White queen, should White move the bishop. It is not time for Black to take on h3 yet. After 21...Qxh3? 22.Bd1 Ng6 23.Qg2 Qh6 24.Nxc7 Nh4 25.Qd2, White has lined up the queen against Black's queen to avoid ideas of ...Nxe4 and ...f3 by Black as the Queens would come off. After 25...g2 26.Re1 Nxf3+ 27.Bxf3 Qh1+ 28.Kf2 Qh4+ 29.Ke2 Nxe4 30.Bxe4 f3+ 31.Kd1 f2 32.Bxg2 fxe1=Q+ 33.Nxe1 Qg4+ 34.Bf3 Rxf3 35.Nxf3 Rf8 36.Ra3 Rxf3 37.Rxf3 Qxf3+ 38.Kc2 and White is winning. Persson - Calzolari, correspondence 1998.

22.Bd1?

This move loses. Other moves are not much of an improvement, but the do make matters harder for Black and open him up to making a mistake. For example, after 22.Rfb1, the move 22...Nh4 is inferior due to 23.Ne1 with advantage to White. Instead, 23...Qxh3 23.Bf1 Qh5 24.Ne1 Nxe4! 25.fxe4 f3 26.Nxf3 Rxf3 27.Qg2 Nf4 28.Qh1 Qg4 29.Rb2 Rf8 30.Nxc7 Rf2 is winning for Black.

22...Nh4 23.Ne1 Qxh3

The White rook still being on f1 makes a major difference!

24.Nxc7 Nh5 25.Nxa8 g2 26.Nxg2 Ng3 0-1

There is no way for White to save himself. For example, the knight on h4 is poison as 27.Nxh4?? Qh1+ 28.Kf2 Qxf1 is mate while other moves lose way too much material.


In the second game, we will see a battle between two experts, and while Black also wins this game, there are a number of errors by both sides. That said, this game also illustrates how critical the bishop is on c8, and while White had his chances to win, the position was so complicated that he couldn't find his way through the minefield.

W: Nikita Panasenko (2018)
B: Patrick McCartney (2084)
Boris Kogan Memorial, Round 4, 2017

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 O-O 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nc6 8.d5 Ne7 9.Ne1 Nd7 10.Be3 f5 11.f3 f4 12.Bf2 g5 13.a4

So we start with the same position shown in the first diagram of the article.

13...Nf6

Black decides to go for direct kingside operations. That said, this move is inferior to 13...Ng6 as it gives White the ability to play c5 without sacrificing a pawn. Black should hold off on this move for as long as possible as long as he can continue to make progress with other moves, or until White plays his knight to b5 to set up the ...g4 push, as seen in the previous game.

14.Nb5

Better would be to play 14.a5 or 14.c5, the latter taking advantage of Black's slight miscue.

14...h5

And once again another inferior move by Black. Better is 14...a6, kicking the knight back as 15.Na7 Bd7 (remember, this piece is critical for Black, he absolutely cannot allow White to trade his knight for it) leaves the knight trapped on a7. Normally, the move ...h5 encourages Nb5 by White, figuring Black has already spent the extra move to get in g4, and so moving the knight to b5 doesn't allow Black to gain time. So with White playing Nb5 too early, why would Black want to play the move that dictates White to play the move he just played?

15.Nxa7 Rxa7

As mentioned prior, this is Black's piece of least value, and it brings the Bishop into an inactive place on a7, and White must also watch out for the bishop getting trapped after a ...b6 push by Black. At the moment, it wouldn't trap the bishop as White can play the simple a5, but it is something that must be watched at all times. All of that said, this move is probably a bit over-zealous and Black should probably play the simple 15...Bd7. Computers will of course say that White has this huge advantage because he is up a pawn, but his pieces are scattered, and Black does have some compensation, even after not playing the best moves on moves 13 and 14.

16.Bxa7 g4 17.c5 g3 18.h3 Ng6 19.Nd3

Better was 19.Bb5. Now Black has the opportunity to completely equalize, and he starts out correctly.

19...Bxh3! 20.gxh3

20.cxd6 was the lesser evil.

20...Qd7 21.Nf2

21...Nh4?

The only move for Black is 21...Ra8!, and after 22.cxd6 Qxd6! (22...Rxa7? 23.dxc7 with advantage to White) 23.Qc2 Rxa7 24.Nd3, the position is level.

22.c6?

White should drive the Black queen off the diagonal of the h3-pawn with 22.cxd6 cxd6 23.Bb5 and if 23...Qc8, then 24.Rc1! with advantage to White.

22...Qc8 23.Qb3 b6 24.a5 gxf2?

Better was 24...Nh7 25.axb6 Ng5 26.Qc2 gxf2+ 27.Rxf2 Nh3+ 28.Kf1 Nxf2 29.Kxf2 Qh3 with a mess.

One move here wins for White. Can you find it?

25.Kxf2??

Of all the legitimate moves, this is the worst one for White!

Black is slightly better after 25.Rxf2 Qxh3 26.Ra3 Ng4 27.fxg4 f3 28.Bxf3 Rxf3 29.Qxf3 Nxf3+ 30.Rfxf3 Qxg4+ 31.Rg3 Qxe4 32.axb6 Qb1+ 33.Kh2 Qxb2+ 34.Kh1 Qc1+ 35.Kh2 Qd2+ 36.Rg2 Qf4+ 37.Kh3 Qc1 38.Rag3 Qh1+ 39.Rh2.

However, 25.Kh2!! is winning for White after 25...Nh7 26.Rxf2 Ng5 27.Bf1 b5 28.Qxb5 Ngxf3+ 29.Kh1 Ng5 30.Ra4 Qe8 31.Qd3 Qg6 32.Rc2 Nhf3 33.Bf2 Nd4 34.a6 Nxc2 35.Qxc2 Nf3 36.a7 +-.

25...Qxh3 26.Ke1

White tries to run, but Black is about to come breaking through so quickly that White won't even know what hit him, and his position is instantly about to fall apart like a house of cards!

26...Nxe4

Taking advantage of the pin on the pawn to the White queen.

27.Kd1 Nf5

And now with the e4-pawn gone, Black uses the f5-square to create fatal threats on both d4 and e3.

28.Kc1 Nd4!

The unfortunate location of the White king allows Black to follow up one knight fork with another, leading to what will be a material advantage for Black after the daring sacrifice of a rook and pawn for the knight and the misplacement of the White bishop.

29.Qd1 Nxe2+ 30.Qxe2 Ng3 31.Qf2 Qxf1+ 32.Qxf1 Nxf1 33.axb6 cxb6 34.Bxb6 Ne3 35.Bxe3 fxe3 36.Ra4

The dust has settled and Black is up a full piece. The only thing left to do is stop White's queenside passers and the full point is his.

36...Bf6 37.c7

Or 37.Kc2 Bd8 38.Ra7 h4! 39.c7 Be7 40.Rb7 h3 41.Rb8 h2 42.Rxf8+ Bxf8 43.c8=Q h1=Q and now 44.Qe6+ or 44.Qg4+ will both be answered by 44...Kh8 and White will soon run out of checks and Black is still winning.

37...Rc8 38.Rc4 h4 39.Kd1 h3

The advancement of the h-pawn deflects the White rook and his only trump, the advanced c-pawn, will be removed and the rest of Black's task is simple.

40.Rg4+ Kf7 41.Rg3 Rxc7 42.Rxh3 Rc5 43.Ke2 Bg5 44.Rh1 Rxd5 0-1


So we saw two games where Black's light-squared bishop played the vital role of sacrificing itself on h3 and the a8-rook doing little to nothing, just going to show that the numerical values assigned to specific pieces can be thrown right out the window once you reach advanced levels. The fact that Black won both via very strong play in the first game, and via a game loaded with errors in the second game shows the extreme level of complications in this line, especially at the amateur level.