[Event "Cairns Cup"] [Site "?"] [Date "2023.06.03"] [Round "1"] [White "Mammadzada, Gunay"] [Black "Khotenashvili, Bella"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B38"] [WhiteElo "2456"] [BlackElo "2470"] [Annotator "Monokroussos,Dennis"] [PlyCount "57"] [EventDate "2023.06.04"] {[%evp 0,21,23,25,15,-3,20,15,14,-10,7,-2,24,24,35,22,32,31,34,26,282,273,271,279]} 1. Nf3 (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 g6 5. c4 Bg7 6. Be3 Nf6 7. Nc3 {and here} Ng4 {is tactically justified and has been played in thousands of games. Perhaps Khotenashvili assumed that her 9th move was relevantly similar to this line?}) 1... Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 cxd4 5. Nxd4 g6 (5... e6 {is frankly better.}) 6. e4 Bg7 (6... Nxd4 7. Qxd4 d6 {is a good alternative, if one must play 5...g6.}) 7. Be3 O-O 8. Be2 d6 9. O-O Ng4 $4 {You would think a GM would know better, but apparently not. In fact, she is the 175th player to uncork this lemon (and the 176th to stumble into this mess - apparently one player did it by transposition). She is the first GM though, although several IMs have made this blunder. (Amusingly, one of the IMs did this against a GM, but the GM failed to exploit it and even went on to lose. Well done.) Actually, saying that she should know better is, in a way, too generous. One would expect this position to be part of her preparation, given that she chose 5...g6 and everything since then is completely normal - White has made all the most main moves in a very popular variation. But suppose she was surprised by White's opening choice and either got tricked into this line or had forgotten her prep. In this case, you'd expect her to spend a few moments analyzing 9...Ng4, given that there are some tactics to work through, and they're not particularly difficult for a GM to puzzle out. (Indeed, a club player should be able to do it.) So it's a double failure on her part. My best guess is that she trusted the move based on an analogy with the somewhat similar Accelerated Dragon line I give in the note to move 1. That's still a surprising error on her part, but at least the mistake becomes somewhat explicable.} (9... Bd7 {is usual (including transpositions, this position has arisen more than 15,000 times, and even excluding transpositions there are more than 13,000 games with 9...Bd7), though not the only decent move.}) 10. Bxg4 (10. Nxc6 $4 {doesn't win because of} Nxe3 {.}) 10... Bxg4 (10... Bxd4 11. Bxc8 $1 $18 {and Black's problem is that trying to continue the desperado game by taking on c3 or e3 is met by the *non*-desperado 12.Bxb7, winning a piece.}) 11. Nxc6 {Now it wins. (At 100 times out of 101, including this game. In one battle between a 1702 and an 1806, Black heroically saved a draw. Not a great moment for the 1700, but he can be proud that he at least figured out how to win the piece, unlike the GM alluded to above. Plus, he didn't lose.) Ten players resigned here, but Khotenashvili, like most of us, wasn't in the mood to give up after 11 moves, and struggled on another 18 moves. (This also reduces the likelihood that the game will be shown forever under the banner "GM Falls For Simple Opening Trap, Loses in 11 Moves". That's why I published this under a very different title.)} Bxd1 12. Nxd8 Bg4 13. Nxb7 {There's a big difference between "trapped" and "mostly trapped".} Rfb8 14. Na5 Rxb2 15. Rfc1 (15. Rac1 {vacates the diagonal but leaves the a-pawn vulnerable. It's an equally good option.}) (15. Nd5 {may be best of all, not that it matters very much.}) 15... Rc8 $146 {A bold contribution to theory.} 16. Nb5 a6 17. Nd4 Bd7 18. h3 {This must have come as a bitter disappointment to Black, who was probably counting on a back rank cheapo at some point in the next 10-20 moves.} f5 {Threatening ...f4. White must stay awake, and not tell herself jokes in the style of a sarcastic annotator commenting after the fact with the omniscience of hindsight and under no pressure whatsoever.} 19. exf5 gxf5 20. f4 Kf7 (20... e5 {Black might as well maximize activity. It's not as if a slow approach is going to work here.}) 21. Rcb1 {Forcing further exchanges.} Rcb8 22. Nab3 Bxd4 23. Bxd4 Re2 24. Bf2 Rb4 25. Rc1 Ra4 26. a3 Rb2 27. Nd4 Rd2 28. Rc3 Rb2 29. Re1 {Now 30.Rce3 is a big threat, winning material or forcing Black to go passive with 29...Rb8 (30.Rce3 Re8). Black has no counterplay or any other sort of compensation for the piece, and White is making progress. Having avoided a miniature (25 moves or less) and especially the embarrassment of losing in 11 moves, Black can (and did) resign with a clear conscience, as one of many players to lose to this tactic rather than as the GM who lost in 11 moves. (I'm having some fun with this, but in her place I'd have done the same thing, give or take a few moves.)} 1-0