[Event "Limburg Open 2025"] [Site "?"] [Date "2025.06.07"] [Round "3"] [White "Grochal, Joey"] [Black "Harff, Wilfried"] [Result "1-0"] [Annotator "JG"] [ECO "E91"] [WhiteElo "2243"] [BlackElo "2109"] [PlyCount "59"] [GameId "2187216956203416"] [SourceVersionDate "2025.06.10"] {[%evp 0,59,19,39,37,38,28,26,-9,24,39,35,47,38,51,56,55,65,73,15,83,148,91,173,98,75,105,110,199,120,139,70,149,176,216,189,221,166,307,41,306,328,329,172,265,189,245,158,464,247,397,241,485,553,617,1072,29987,29990,29991,29992,29993,29994]} {The only game this tournament that really deserves to be seen. The level of play of my elderly opponent was rather low so even this game does not really deserve any acclaim.} 1. d4 g6 {Preparing was particularly tough this tournament with limited time and tools. I checked what the father of the more well known Harff played on a phone near my car for all of 2 minutes. Of the 8 games played as black in the chesstempo database one of the 2 more recent ones actually did feature 1..g6. I did not do any real preparation for this game though.} 2. c4 Bg7 3. e4 d6 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. Nf3 c5 {I am always happy to see this. The Ben-Oni is a wonderful opening to get as white.} 6. d5 Bg4 {I know Henrik Westerweele also likes this type of exchange in these positions sometimes but he tends to play it a lot better than this man. When black goes for this in Ben-Oni positions with e6 and exd5 cxd5 already played it tends to be somewhat more playable as was seen in my game against de Zwart in the ZSB-beker this year.} 7. Be2 $16 {Without doing anything special white has a solid edge already.} O-O 8. O-O Nbd7 9. Be3 h6 $2 {A terrible move. With the bishop on g4 he lacks the firepower to push for the b5 break since he can not support it with Bd7. That leaves the e6 break. After an exchange though all the black pawns including g6 and h6 will be extremely weak!} (9... Qb6 10. Rb1 Rfe8 11. Nd2 Bxe2 12. Qxe2 Qa5 13. a3 a6 14. b4 Qc7 15. Rfc1 e6 16. dxe6 fxe6 17. bxc5 {½-½ Andersson,U (2560)-Spassky,B (2640) (GER-ch) International05 Munich 1979 (14)}) (9... Ne8 10. Qd2 Qa5 11. Bg5 f6 12. Be3 Nb6 13. a3 Bxf3 14. b4 Qa6 15. gxf3 Rc8 16. Nb5 f5 {0-1 Gretarsson,H (2442)-Malakhov,V (2710) EU-Cup 27th Rogaska Slatina 2011 (7)}) (9... a6 10. a4 Qc7 11. h3 Bxf3 12. Bxf3 e6 13. Qd2 $16) 10. h3 Bxf3 11. Bxf3 a6 12. Be2 Rb8 13. a4 {Indeed black can simply not achieve the b5 break in this position...} Qc7 14. f4 e6 $2 {And so he elects the other break. If only his h6-pawn were back on h7 now... All 4 pawns d6/e6/g6/h6 are weak! Puting rooks on d8/e8 first seemed like a better plan but there too white has a very big advantage. The typical Ben-Oni pawn sacrifice e5!? dxe5 followed by f5 is already a topic in this position for example.} (14... Z0 15. e5 $5 dxe5 16. f5 g5 17. h4 Nh7 18. Ne4 Ndf6 19. Nxc5 gxh4 20. Qe1 $18 {with a winning advantage for example. The computer prefers at least 4 other 'normal' developing moves over this sacrifice. This still leads to a massive advantage which says everything about the black position.}) 15. dxe6 fxe6 16. Qd2 $18 {Things only get worse from here for black.} Kh7 (16... Rbd8 17. Rad1 Nb8 18. f5 exf5 19. exf5 g5 20. h4 $18 {and the black position collapses as well. Still it was relatively better than the game.}) 17. Rad1 Ne8 18. e5 $1 {This attack of the pin must have been missed by the opponent.} Qa5 {Black tries to muddy the waters. Nothing ever materializes though.} 19. Ne4 Qxa4 (19... Qxd2 20. Rxd2 g5 21. g3 gxf4 22. gxf4 Rg8 23. Kh1 Bf8 24. Bh5 b5 25. axb5 axb5 26. Bf7 $18 {with or without Queens the black camp is just full of holes and weaknesses.}) 20. Nxd6 Nxd6 21. Qxd6 Qb3 22. Bc1 {Playing a tournament like this can be pretty tiring. Around here i suddenly got spooked by the Knight landing on d4 with some counterplay. After a bit i realized it was on d7 and could not get there!} Nb6 23. Qxe6 Rfe8 {As lost as the position is this is the wrong rook! Black will get mated over the f-file in the game...} 24. Qg4 h5 25. Qh4 Bh6 (25... Nxc4 26. Bxh5 gxh5 27. Qxh5+ Kg8 28. Rd7 Qg3 29. Qf7+ Kh8 30. Rf3 $18) 26. Rd6 {All the pieces are participating in some way!} Rg8 27. f5 {I really wanted to sac on h5 before i spotted the mate from the game: f5 is just curtains.} (27. Bxh5 gxh5 28. Qxh5 Rxg2+ 29. Kxg2 Qc2+ 30. Kh1 Qe4+ 31. Qf3 $18 {was adequate enough too.}) 27... Bxc1 28. fxg6+ Rxg6 29. Qxh5+ Rh6 30. Rxh6+ {An enjoyable game and crushing victory. It would be the only decent game of the tournament really.} (30. Rxh6+ Bxh6 31. Rf7+ Kg8 32. Qg6+ Kh8 33. Qh7#) 1-0