Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague (PER, 2019) vs WIM Camille De Seroux (SUI, 2152) · 1-0
Board 2, Switzerland vs Peru, women’s event · Nimzo-Indian Defence, Kmoch Variation (E20) · 90 minutes for 40 moves, then 30 minutes, plus 30 seconds per move
By Bogner AI Coach AI Coach . This analysis was written by a Bogner Chess AI coach.
Round eleven, the last round of the women’s event in Samarkand, Switzerland against Peru. WIM Camille De Seroux sat on board two with Black across from Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague, rated a hundred and thirty-three points below the Swiss side. On board one GM Alexandra Kosteniuk was playing IM Deysi Cori for the top-board point. What a team match on the last day expects from board two when the home player is the higher seed is the full point; a half would already be a giveback.
The Nimzo-Indian Kmoch Variation with gave De Seroux a black position in which White’s centre pawn on f2 stood on f3 waiting to go forward. After castling and a small White edge grew that twenty-five minutes on two moves did not undo. On two questions to the centre came a wait once and a retreat once, and the clock ran with it, for the fourth time this week.
After two long thinks: 19...Kh8
De Seroux had spent fifteen minutes and fifty-three seconds on and another eleven minutes and forty-three seconds on . Both moves are decent: the rook on b7 props up the a6 bishop, the queen returns to its square because after there is no target on a4 any more. After those two thinks she had seventeen minutes and nine seconds left, and the position stood at roughly a pawn and a half against her.
After the position asked for an answer in the centre. holds the e5 pawn in place, denies the white knight the f5 square and takes the sting out of f4-f5: . The objectively best move was with the same idea, coupling the black rooks, keeping f7 in reserve and taking the point out of f4-f5.
The game saw after two minutes and eleven seconds. The king goes to a safe square, but it answers no question about the centre. Objectively that is around a pawn and a half; against the most forcing White would have stood clearly ahead, as shows. The rule: when your clock says quiet move but the board says concrete, the quiet move is the wrong one. First answer in the centre what the opponent has just asked.
Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague (PER, 2019)
WIM Camille De Seroux (SUI, 2152)
The reply that did not come on the other side: 20.Rbf1?!
Zarate Oyague put the second rook on the f file and left on the board. was the objectively best move and would have put White more than a pawn in the lead: . Instead came , a useful move but not a forcing one, and the advantage dropped by roughly eight tenths of a pawn.
De Seroux used the moment with , the only move that pulls a target back into the position: the knight hits the d2 bishop, and White has no clean trade because the bishop cannot move away without letting the black rook look at the c3 pawn. The game went , and White’s last minor-piece defender of the dark squares was the bishop that had just come off. From c3 to a1, Black had targets now.
The moment was the chance to turn the inaccuracy that had happened between the colours into an endgame with activity. The rule cuts both ways: when the opponent plays a natural but not a forcing answer, that is the second in which your own calculation does not sleep.
Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague (PER, 2019)
WIM Camille De Seroux (SUI, 2152)
The tactical error: 23...Nc7
Between move twenty-one and move twenty-two De Seroux had taken the white c1 bishop off the board with and had held the e5 pawn with (six minutes and twenty-two seconds on f6). After , which aims the white bishop at g4, the position asked for an immediate answer in the centre: holds the f6 pawn, blocks the bishop’s diagonal and gives up the tension in the centre at the moment when the f6 pawn is holding the black king’s shell. After those four moves White stood clearly better, but without a concrete motif.
The game saw after one minute and forty-three seconds. The knight goes to a square where it defends nothing and attacks nothing. The point of the position is the g4-e6 diagonal: the white bishop is heading for g4 to work on e6, and only the black knight from e6 could hold that diagonal as its sole defender. From c7 the knight can reach e6 only once more, and by then it has long since lost control of the long diagonal.
Objectively the evaluation jumped from around two and a half pawns to more than five. The forcing white reply was ; in the game came to the same idea. The rule this game shares with the ninth: before retreating a piece, first ask what the opponent has just played, and whether the centre already prescribes the answer. When it does, the retreat is the wrong move.
Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague (PER, 2019)
WIM Camille De Seroux (SUI, 2152)
Under a minute: 36...Rfg8
From move twenty-five on De Seroux was playing under five minutes, from move thirty-six on under one. In between, took three minutes thirteen seconds and every one of the moves after it, , , , , , averaged well under half a minute. White stood more than five pawns ahead the whole way, and the clock no longer decided which of the straight roads White would take to convert.
After the question for Black was which rook to trade off on g8. The tougher move would have been : it clears the eighth rank for a moment and stretches the loss over a slower road. The move played was with a minute’s thought and thirty-three seconds left on the clock. After it, mate is in four: , and the white rook from d8 delivers mate the move after.
The rule holds for every time-trouble position in which the game has already been given away: the question is no longer whether Rf7 or Rgg8 keeps the smaller disadvantage, but which move cuts off the shortest road. A rook on g8 cannot defend d8 next move, and the eighth rank is the road the white rooks are looking for. That is the line between a lost position that lasts five moves and one in which mate is four moves away.
Flor De Maria Zarate Oyague (PER, 2019)
WIM Camille De Seroux (SUI, 2152)
Verdict
A loss with Black on board two against a lower-seeded Peruvian is a full point off Switzerland’s ledger on a last day on which Kosteniuk brought her own game home. The game tipped on move twenty-three, not in time trouble: was there, and pulled the knight to a square that no longer held the g4-e6 diagonal. The mistake is the same one as in round nine, from the other colour: before a retreat, ask whether the centre already prescribes the answer. On the clock it was the fourth time this week that the game continued under five minutes from move twenty-five on, and the first in which the position was already lost by then. Zarate Oyague did not take her chance on move twenty, and still brought the game home cleanly.
Moves
1-0
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