Chess Victory for Arik Kuzmis

By Arik Kuzmis

First Year pupil Arik Kuzmis recently won a tightly fought match in a very competitive online chess tournament. Kuzmis played, not only with a very high level of accuracy, but also an almost perfect game to ensure that he overcame his opponent. He talks us through his impressive victory:

Arik plays as white. The game starts of with the French Défense: Winawer Variation, 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 and then Arik transfers to a more familiar variation known as the Advanced variation, 4. e5 Ne7 5. a3. Arik, with this variation, kicks out the bishop and pushes his pawn further up the center and tries to take control. Here, black makes a fatal error Ba5 which then allows Arik to develope even further and take advantage of black’s bad positional play.

The game continues 6. b4 Bb6 7. Nf3 Nf5 8. Na4 O-O 9. g4 Ne7 10. Bd3. Here we see that Arik has trapped the enemy bishop but decides not to take it because he can instead develope his position and leave the bishop to sit there doing nothing. Neither attacking nor defending. 11. exf6 Rxf6 12. Bg5 Rf8 13. O-O Nbc6 14. Nxb6 axb6 15. b5 Na5 16. Ne5 c6 17. a4 Qd6. From here we see that Arik eventually trades off the bishop after the opponent makes the innacuracy Nc6. Although this knight is attacking the center with the help of the isolated bishop, Arik immediatly took black’s bishop and after the exchange, pushed his pawn up to threaten his knight. After black’s Na5, Arik developes some more and then fully traps the black knight in with a4.

Then Arik makes some clever exchanges and forces the oponent to now be a knight down going into the endgame. 18. c3 c5 19. Qe2 Nc4 20. Bxc4 dxc4 21. Nxc4 Qc7 22. Bxe7 Qxe7 23. Nxb6 Rb8 24. Qe5 Bd7 25. dxc5 Rbd8 26. Rad1 Qh4 27. Rxd7 Qxg4+ 28. Qg3 Qxg3+ 29. fxg3 Rxf1+ 30. Kxf1 Rxd7 31. Nxd7 Kf7 32. c6 bxc6 33. bxc6 Ke7 34. a5 Kd6. Here arik playes the fantastic move 35. Ne5. This move is a game winner because it defends the pawn but puts the white knight under threat. Although this may seem like a bad move because it is hanging a knight, it is actually strategically beneficial because if the king takes the knight, it will be too far away from the white pawn that it will advance and turn into a queen. 

Here Arik simply pushes his knight towards the center of the board and protects his pawns. 35. Ne5 Kc7 36. Ke1 g5 37. Ke2 h5 38. Kd3 h4 39. gxh4 gxh4 40. Kc4 h3 41.Kc5 Kd8 42. a6 1-0. Here black resigns, leaving Arik, as white, victorious and feeling rather happy with himself. 

Arik knew that this player was very strong and had a higher chess rating than him. However, after 42 moves, a lot of hard work and intense strategy, Arik prevailed, showcasing his knowledge and strength over the course of the game.