Campfire Stories #2

In the last few weeks I have been working to clear out a lot of the clutter that I have accumulated in the last few years. Much of that clutter involves duplicate copies of chess books and magazines along with duplicated folders on my hard drives. I keep one database for annotating games for Campfire Chess Magazine and the new Campfire Stories column. I was surprised when I began sorting through the 2015 entries in that database and noticed a game labeled Perelshteyn – NN 0-1. The game itself is pretty dramatic and according to its PGN metadata was played in April of 2014. However, I was not able to find any reference to it in the Megabase or online. I checked 365 Chess and Chessgames.com, but there is no reference to it in any of those databases as well. Therefore, if anyone finds out who this game really belongs to, please let me know at wesley at campfire chess dot com.

[pgn]
[Event “?”]
[Site “?”]
[Date “2014.12.04”]
[Round “?”]
[White “Perelshteyn”]
[Black “NN”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “A90”]
[Annotator “Surber,Wesley”]
[PlyCount “84”]
[EventDate “2014.12.04”]

{I am not sure why this game was sitting in my annotated games database nor
can I find any reference to GM Perelshteyn playing a game like this on April
12, 2014. There are no references to the positions in this game on Chessbase
or other sites that I can find. If someone knows the details about this game,
please email them to me: wesley at campfire chess dot com.} 1. d4 d5 2. c4 e6
3. Nf3 c6 4. g3 f5 5. Bg2 Bd6 6. c5 Bc7 7. O-O {White castles to safety and
the position is a fairly standard Dutch Defense. White is slightly ahead in
this position and black has to be careful or the position could open up
against him very quickly.} Nf6 8. Nc3 O-O 9. b4 Bd7 10. a4 Be8 11. a5 {At this
point in the game, both sides have managed to build quite a threatening
blockade in the center of the board. White still maintains a slight advantage,
but Black is making it increasingly harder for him to develop without engaging.
} Bh5 12. Re1 a6 13. Bg5 h6 14. Bxf6 Qxf6 15. Qd2 Nd7 16. e3 g5 {I have seen
positions like this in a few of my own games. Black is slowly gaining an
advantage by building up his pawn structure and White could be dead in the
water if he does not come up with an effective counterplay.} 17. Na4 Rae8 18.
Nb6 Nxb6 19. axb6 Bb8 20. Rac1 Rf7 21. Qd3 Rg7 22. Ra1 Bg6 {Black’s Bishop
continues to wreak havoc on White’s Queen and Knight combination. As long as
the Queen and Bishop are guarding the h8 and h7 diagonals, White does not have
many options for counterplay.} 23. Qd2 Bh5 24. Qb2 Bxf3 25. Bxf3 e5 26. Bh5 {
White thrusts at the heart of Black’s back row defenses.} Rf8 27. Rf1 f4 28.
Bg4 e4 29. Qc3 {Deep Fritz 14 does not like this position for White very much.
It looks like White is squandering opportunities by allowing Black to push his
pawns deeper into his territory.} Qg6 30. Bh3 h5 31. Ra5 g4 32. Bg2 f3 33. Bh1
{It looks like White is completely hopeless in this position, but in fact,
Black is just as immobilized.} h4 34. Ra2 Rh7 35. Qe1 Kf7 36. b5 axb5 37. Rd2
Rfh8 {Black has a massive battery bearing down on the trapped White King.
White needs to make his move now or risk a quick death.} 38. Rb2 Rh5 39. Rc2
R8h6 40. Rb2 Qh7 41. Rc2 hxg3 42. fxg3 Rxh2 {White loses any hope of escape
from the trap.} 0-1

[/pgn]