Hryzlova vs Gueci

White had a clear plan: 13.Na4 attacks the bishop on c5 and prepares 14.c4, the lever against the d5 pawn. The plan costs something, and the bill arrived at once. After 14...Qa5 the knight on a4 stood in the queen’s line of fire, and 15.b3 was the only move that held on to the small edge at all: the pawn guards the knight and props up c4 at the same time. Anything else levelled the position immediately.

With 16...Bb4 Black offered the trade of the dark-squared bishops, and the question was take it or step aside. Taking was right: 17.Bxb4 Qxb4 18.Qe1 takes the queens off as well and leaves White a shade better. The game saw 17.Bc1, and with it the bishop stood again on the square it had left on move ten. The small plus for White turned into a small plus for Black, worth a good half a pawn.

You decide about a trade before you prepare it, not afterwards. 16.Bd2 was the announcement and 17.Bc1 the withdrawal, and the opponent paid nothing for the two moves. If you put a piece back on its starting square, you should have something visible to show for it: a square, a pawn, a file.

After 17...dxc4 18.Bxc4 Bxc4 19.Qxc4 the light-squared bishops were off and the position was level. It asked a single question: what becomes of the knight on a4? The two best moves answered it, 22.Nb6 and 22.Nb2, both bringing it back into the game. 22.f4 takes kingside space instead and leaves it where it is.

The answer was 22...Qe2. The queen lands on the second rank, where the a2 pawn has no guard, and after 23.Qf3 Qxa2 White was a pawn down. With the knight in play the same manoeuvre looks different: after 22.Nb2 Qe2 23.Rb1 the position is balanced, because the knight covers d1 and the rook goes to the queenside, where the work is.

The f4 pawn later took on a second job, as a target: the knight on f8 set off towards it with 31...Ng6. Before any wing advance, count your own pieces that are not taking part. Here it was one out of five, and it stood on a4.

Since 23...Qxa2 White had been a pawn down, and on c6 stood one without a guard, right in front of the rook on c1. 27.Rxc6 collects it and levels the material, and nine out of ten players at this strength would collect it the same way. In terms of position it still costs a good pawn.

The reason is the d3 square. After 27...Rd3 the rook stands on the third rank and attacks two things at once, the queen on f3 and the b3 pawn, which is as undefended there as the c6 pawn was a moment earlier. 28.Qe2 Rxb3 followed, the pawn was back, and the difference from before is a black rook in the middle of White’s position.

Right was 27.Nc3 Bxc3 28.Rxc3. The knight comes back from the rim after fourteen moves, the rook has the third rank first, and the invasion on d3 never happens. White stays a pawn down and holds the position together. The question before any recapture is therefore not whether the pawn can be taken, but which square you give up to take it.

On move 31, 31.Rc1 left the knight where it was one last time; White had four and a half minutes left and stood about three pawns worse. With 32.Nb2 came the move the position had been asking for over ten moves, and it came with tempo: from b2 the knight attacks the rook on d3, the piece that had been holding the whole black position together.

The rook had to move, and where it went decided the game. On the second rank it would have stayed dangerous: 32...Rd2 33.Qxf5 exf5 34.Nc4 Nxf4 35.Nxd2 Ne2+ 36.Kf1 Nxc1 wins the exchange. The game saw 32...Rd5, and with that the diagonal from c2 to f5 was open. 33.Qxf5 exf5 took the queens off the board and half the lead with them: about three pawns became a pawn and a half.

A piece that is being chased picks its square by what it still does from there, not by where it is safe. On d2 the rook holds the second rank and the knight fork on e2 together. On d5 it holds nothing and clears a diagonal with the enemy queen waiting at the other end.

Black had a single winning asset left, the passed pawn on a5. No white pawn was left on the a- or b-file to stop it, and the bishop on b4 guarded it from behind. On the kingside 36...hxg3 37.hxg3 had released the tension; 36...h3 would have left the pawn standing as a wedge and kept the advantage.

With one minute and twenty-two seconds on the clock White found 38.Nd6. The knight attacks the rook on e8 and offers itself to the bishop at the same time, and after 38...Bxd6 39.exd6 Rxd6 40.Bxa5 the passed pawn is gone. The next-best move, 38.Bf2, would have kept a clearly worse position.

What was left was a pawn deficit that is not one: Black had f5, f7 and g7, White f4 and g3. The extra pawn was the doubled f-pawn, and White’s own f4 pawn stood directly in its way on f5. A pawn that can never become a passed pawn does not win a game. Fourteen moves later, after 52...Rb3+, the draw was agreed.