For most people, part of what they consider mastery of something includes the spatial value of time itself. You don't expect a great chef to labor ten hours on making a simple tomato soup. And yet the only time you ever hear people whining about greatness taking time is with chess. Go figure. After thousands of games and obscene amounts of time spent on studying chess, you'd expect that people could reel off moves much faster than they do.
But how do I illustrate the beauty of 1 0 atomic chess? When siggemannen and I finished playing a series of 1 0 games, I knew I had a candidate in one of the games, the only draw in our series that day. And it is that game that I present to you today.
Here is the link to the wildchess database entry for this game: siggemannen vs. Chronatog
1.d4 d5 2.Nh3 Bg4 3.f3 Bxh3 4.g3 e5 5.h4 e4
6.e3 f5 7.Na3 b5 8.c4 Bxa3 9.c5 c6 10.g4 g6
11.g5 h6 12.h5 hxg5 13.f4 Nf6 14.hxg6 Qh4+ 15.Rxh4 Rh1
16.Kd2 Rh2+ 17.Bg2 Na6 18.b4 O-O 19.a4 Nxb4 20.axb5 Rg8
21.Rb1 Rh1 22.Qf1 Rxf1 23.Rb8+ Kd7 24.Rd8+ Ke7 25.Rd7+ Ke8
26.Rd8+ Ke7 27.Rxg8 a5 28.Ba3 a4 29.Bb4 a3 30.Bxa3 Kf7 {draw agreed}
Bear in mind that this was played at 1 0 time controls. I'm fairly sure that some of the moves won't hold up under exhaustive analysis but in order for a theoretically drawn game to be won, somebody has to blunder. 1 0 just speeds this process up by adding limited time to the equation.
1. d4! d5
This was the first time siggemannen played 1.d4 versus me. I prefer to play systems that open lines up so I played the very
natural looking d5, hoping that it didn't lose outright like 1.e4 e5 does.
2. Nh3 Bg4 3. f3 Bxh3 4. g3
After 2. Nh3 was played, I immediately wanted to shut down any potential for his Queen to cause havoc by the very simple delayed exchange of my Bishop for his Knight. 4. g3 was a surprise though!
4. ... e5 5. h4 e4 6. e3 f5 7. Na3 b5
I began grabbing space with e5 and after h4 was played, forced 6.e3 by siggemannen to close in his lines, otherwise, 7. ... e3 would completely block him in with a huge lead in development and available tactics for me. Following the same principles, 7. ... b5 shuts down Na3 and grabs more open space for me
8.c4 Bxa3 9.c5 c6 10.g4 g6 11.g5 h6
8. ... Bxa3 because c4 prepared c5 to close in my Bishop and I thought it best to swap it off for his other Knight. Then 10. g4 was a probing move, seeing if I'd overreact by playing Qc7, which wastes tempo and allows him to seal off the dark squares with f4. I thought g6 was best, defending against any Queen hijinks while not allowing him to completely shut off my lines. g5 was played to shut off my black diagonal for the queen, so I played h6 to get rid of the pawn.
12.h5 hxg5 13.f4 Nf6 14.hxg6 Qh4+ 15.Rxh4 Rh1 16.Kd2 Rh2+ 17.Bg2 Na6
I decided to play a gambit with 13. ... Nf6, offering him pawn and knight for his pawn and opening up my lines - a further sacrifice becomes necessary. 14. ... Qh4+ sacrifices the Queen and prepares my queenside castling to transfer over my other rook. I'm sure siggemannen could have traded off his Queen for my Rook and won easily with a simple advantage. Unfortunately, he didn't see what I was threatening as it was 1 0. This is the beauty of 1 0!
18.b4 O-O-O 19.a4 Nxb4 20.axb5 Rg8!
siggemannen elected to shut off my knight's space with b4, allowing me to castle long, unfortunately, I have to sacrifice yet another piece. 19. ... Nxb4 so if he fails to recapture, I can play b4 and my king will be safe temporarily as he cannot transfer his pieces over to the open black diagonal fast enough to defeat the rooks on the other side of the board.
20. ... Rg8 21.Rb1 Rh1!
siggemannen completely missed Rh1! which saved the game for me. Rb8+ loses due to Rxd1 atomic-explosion. The Queen is now lost, as I threaten atomic explosion. Both Qg1 and Qf1 produce the same result, however, it is important that you capture with the correct rook, or you will have thrown away the game.
22.Qf1 Rxf1 23.Rb8+ Kd7 24.Rd8+ Ke7 25.Rd7+ Ke8 26.Rd8+ Ke7 27.Rxg8 a5
Now the game is drawn after the rooks are exchanged off. My pawns are blockading siggemannen's pawns and none of them are the color his bishop is, therefore no progress can be made with the game. Even if I didn't have the extra rook pawn, this position would be a draw. And we had a total time of approximately 10 seconds left for each player remaining.
28.Ba3 a4 29.Bb4 a3 30.Bxa3 Kf7, draw agreed
And this fine 1 0 game concludes in a gentlemanly fashion, an agreed draw. I'm completely sure that siggemannen could have won rather easily if he had traded his queen off immediately for my rook, as he would have had enough time to play b4 in addition. But that's the beauty of 1 0. It allows games to reach superb finishes like this one. That's the beauty of 1 0.