Blitz games vs Baadur Jobava!

Oligarckh 3049 vs UltraMarathon 1774

On the 5th of March this year I played three blitz games (3 minutes +1 second increment) on the Playchess server against Baadur Jobava of Georgia, ranked at the time 37th in the world with a FIDE rating of 2707, (and a recent win against world number one Magnus Carlsen in the chess olympiad). All three games were Friendly (do not effect ratings) and Jobava (Oligarckh) had a rating of 3049 and my (UltraMarathon) rating was 1774.

Game 1

Oligarckh vs UltraMarathon

Position after 20.b4

The first game against Badur Jobava. 1.d4 This was the first of 3 games against Baadur Jobava (aka Oligarckh on Playchess); I had been talking to him and he sportingly challenged me to a few blitz games. There were dozens of spectators watching. I will just give brief comments as these games are just included for fun to show how easily a super GM kills a club player in blitz. 1...c6 2.c4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Nf3 Bf5 5.cxd5 Nxd5 6.Qb3 Nxc3 7.bxc3 Qb6 8.Nd2 Qxb3 9.axb3 a6?! why did I play this? It doesn't serve any purpose at the moment. [9...Nd7] 10.e4 Bg6 11.Bd3 Fritz gives white a pawn advantage 11...e6 Fritz says Nd7 or e5 were better [11...Nd7 12.f4 f6 13.f5 Bf7; 11...e5 12.Nc4 exd4 13.Nb6 Ra7 this looks messy for black so Nd7 was probably better than this] 12.Nc4 Nd7 13.Bf4 Be7 [F says 13...b5 is better 14.Na5 Nf6] 14.Nd6+ Bxd6 15.Bxd6 Nf6?! [15...f5 may have been better] 16.f3 h5 Fritz agrees, but by now it gives white 1.4 pawns advantage 17.Ke2 h4 18.Ke3 Ng8?! looks time wasting; Kd7 was less pointless [18...Kd7] 19.c4 Ne7 20.b4 white has the mother of all pawn centres 20...Nc8 21.Bf4 f6 22.b5?! a dubious move according to Fritz which drops evaluation from 1.5 to 0.8 [22.g4] 22...Ke7? Black had to play accurately with c5, but I didn't and the computer evaluation is 2.3 [22...c5 23.bxa6 bxa6 24.Rhb1 (if 24.dxc5? e5 25.Bxe5 fxe5 26.Ra5 and black is a bit better) 24...cxd4+ white's problem is threats to trap the dark squared bishop 25.Ke2 (25.Kxd4? e5+ 26.Bxe5 fxe5+ 27.Kxe5) ] 23.bxc6 bxc6 white now easily infiltrates 24.Rhb1 Ra7 25.Bb8 Ra8? at least I should have kept it on the 7th rank [25...Rd7] 26.Rb7+ Kf8 27.Ra5 Be8 28.c5 Kg8 29.Bc4 Bf7 30.Rxa6 Rxa6 31.Bxa6 Be8 32.Rc7 h3 33.g3 Kh7 34.Rxc8 resigned 1-0

Game 2

UltraMarathon vs Oligarckh

Position after 18..Nxa5

Game two, this time I had white. 1.e4 d6 2.d3 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.g3 Bg7 5.Bg2 0–0 6.Nge2 c5 7.0–0 Nc6 8.h3 Rb8 9.Be3 b5 10.Qd2 [10.a3 may have been better] 10...b4 11.Nd1?! [F says 11.Nd5 was better] 11...a5 12.Bh6 a4 13.Bxg7 Kxg7 14.Ne3 a3 15.bxa3 bxa3 16.Rab1 Be6 Actually I have done pretty well so far and Fritz evaluates it as about equal 17.c4 Qa5 18.Qxa5 Nxa5 19.Nd5? [apparently after 19.Rb5 the position is still about equal] 19...Nxd5 20.exd5 It comes to mind that this game is a good example of how futile it is when club players focus their training on learning openings, (which I have always thought a ludicrous thing), because here I had an equal position against a super GM up until move 19 but once we get properly into the middle game the class of the stronger player immediately becomes apparent, (this is only a blitz game but still serves to demonstrate that principle). 20...Bf5 the d pawn is hard to defend 21.Be4? this blunders a pawn (in an admittedly already very bad position) - a better defence could have been player though [even so after 21.Rbd1 black can get a totally dominating position even with simple positional moves 21...Rb2 22.Rfe1 Rfb8] 21...Bxe4 the rest is trivial 22.dxe4 Nxc4 23.Rxb8 Rxb8 24.Rc1 Rb2 25.Rxc4 Rxe2 26.Rc3 Rxa2 27.Kg2 Ra1 28.Kf3 Kf6 29.h4 h5 30.Kf4 e5+ 31.dxe6 fxe6 32.f3 e5+ 33.Ke3 a2 resigns 0-1

Game 3

Oligarckh vs UltraMarathon

Position after 14.Bd2

1.d4 The third blitz game against Jobava. 1...c6 2.e4 Caro Kann this time instead of Slav 2...d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+ exf6 6.Bc4 Be7 7.Ne2 0–0 8.0–0 Bf5?! Fritz doesn't like this, allowing Ng3 followed by h4, and gives white +1 pawns evaluation 9.Ng3 Bg6 10.Bd3?! Fritz drops evaluation from +1 to +0.2 [10.h4 F +1] 10...Nd7 11.Re1 Re8 12.Bf4 Nb6 13.c3 [13.Nf5 was stronger according to Fritz] 13...Nd5 Fritz actually gives black a slight edge here (–0.2) 14.Bd2??! Hanging the d3 bishop and white instantly resigned before I even knew why (and before I had a chance to take the d3 bishop)! At the time and in the intervening months I was almost certain Baadur had thrown the game on purpose to be a good sport and that may be the case, but having analysed the game I can see it is quite likely he really did blunder, (remembering that this is only a blitz game). Fritz suggests 14.Ne2 giving up the bishop for the knight, which white naturally would not be keen to acquiesce to, and Be3 and Bc1 look positionally unpleasant places to put the bishop, so it looks like he has put the bishop on the natural square d2 almost instantly without thinking and has overlooked that the d3 bishop is en prise. 0-1