Analysis
The game in detail
GM Christian Bauer (FRA, 2561) vs GM Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 2413) · ½-½
Board 2, SG Zürich vs ASK Réti · Queen’s Gambit Declined, Exchange Variation, Reshevsky Variation (D36) · 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.
Board two in Zurich, round seven, ASK Réti away at the league leaders. Across the board sits Christian Bauer, 2561, the highest rated player in the match, and Zürich have the higher rating on all eight boards. Anyone looking at the pairings before the round counts on nothing from this one. A half point here takes the board the numbers say should be given away out of the reckoning, and it is the figure the boards below can work with.
A half point is what it became, and for a while there was more in it. After White’s twenty-eighth move Black was the better side, with one minute and twenty seconds on the clock, and one move on the twenty-ninth gave half of it back.
Twenty minutes for 10...Nbd7
Queen’s Gambit Declined, Exchange Variation: with Bauer takes the tension out of the centre and plays the structure rather than the initiative. , then , and the Reshevsky setup is on the board, the bishop keeping the diagonal towards h7. The book ends with the position after .
is the move most players make here, and it is exactly as good as : there is nothing between them. Stojanovic needs 20 minutes 42 for it, with 1:05:49 left after the move against Bauer’s 1:27:42. adds another 9 minutes 34. The knight is active on e4 and the alternatives are a matter of taste, but half an hour is gone on two moves that contained no decision.
How narrow the board already is shows on move 15. attacks the knight on e4, and it has exactly one square: . Anything else costs material, for instance , and at the end of the exchanges White has a piece for a pawn. So the move is not an achievement, it is an obligation, and it was already in the position when the knight went to e4. In a structure a player knows, the thinking time belongs where the pawns can still change, not on the move where both options are equally good.
GM Christian Bauer (FRA, 2561)
GM Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 2413)
Three moves to get the knight to e6
takes 16 minutes 40, with 29:10 left after the move, and that is the second big item. The move is fine and simply not the best: and are worth about a fifth of a pawn more, which is a difference a player hardly feels. What was expensive was not the move, it was the time. adds 7 minutes 23 and leaves 22:17, and after move 20 the clocks read 8:56 against 34:54.
What the time bought is a plan, and the plan works. is the freeing move and the best move in the position, and it is not the one most players choose. brings in the bishop that is always Black’s problem piece in the Exchange Queen’s Gambit. is the knight’s third stop after f6 and g5; on e6 it attacks d4, covers c5 and looks at f4. Most players put a rook on e8 here. Very well played, and from move 21 the position is level.
Then the bishop joins in: and , with the idea of trading the light-squared bishops and taking the last worry of the opening off the board. Bauer handles that well: he sidesteps with and and plays against the squares instead of the pieces. From here the rating is not the subject any more: the structure is symmetrical, the better plan belongs to Black, and what White has more of is 26 minutes. In the Exchange Queen’s Gambit the bishop on c8 is Black’s worry, the route b7-c6-b5 is the answer to it, and it costs three moves a player has to budget for.
GM Christian Bauer (FRA, 2561)
GM Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 2413)
28.Qa5 in seven seconds
costs 5 minutes 30 and leaves 1:10. From here Stojanovic plays the game on the increment, with one to two minutes on the clock, and the next few moves show it. arrives after three seconds, with 1:37 left after the move; was the more accurate one, because after comes , the best square for that knight, which Bauer finds in four minutes. A quarter of a pawn, no more, but it is the price of the clock. follows after two seconds.
takes the last pawn out of the centre and it is level again. Then after seven seconds. The queen attacks the bishop on b5, but it leaves the centre, and that is the difference here: with it would have stayed level, while after Black is the better side by nearly half a pawn.
is the only move that holds on to it. From c6 the queen covers the bishop on b5 and backs the pawn on d5, and that pawn is the whole point. The alternatives hand everything straight back, makes the position level again, and almost nobody at this level even looks at . He plays it after 1 minute 27, with 1:21 left after the move. Of the moves where there was really something to decide, that is the best one of the game. When the opponent’s queen leaves the centre, the move worth looking for is the one that holds the loose pieces and the pawn centre together, not the one that takes something.
GM Christian Bauer (FRA, 2561)
GM Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 2413)
29...d4 was the move
Bauer plays after 2 minutes 13, with 13:20 left after the move, and that break needs an answer. The answer is . The pawn walks past White’s e-pawn, is a passed pawn once it is there and is protected by the pawn on c5: , and Black is about two thirds of a pawn better. The idea had been there for two moves already; it was the natural reply to e4 from the moment the pawn stood on c5.
What was played is , after 36 seconds, with 1:15 left after the move. It is the move that lets White’s break do its work: , the queens are gone, the centre is dissolved, and about a third of a pawn is left of the advantage, which is half of it. This is not an error in the sense of losing material, and after White had nothing better than the queen trade either. It is a concession, and objectively it is wrong: was worth twice as much.
From a practical point of view is the human move. With 75 seconds on the clock against an opponent who has 13 minutes, a player trades queens and goes into an endgame where nothing can happen. Probably he was no longer looking for the pawn move at that moment, but for the safest road to the half point. It stays wrong, and so does the rule: a passed pawn in the centre, protected by a pawn of its own, is worth more than a queen trade that makes everything safe. Two moves later the same point: keeps what is left, comes after 1 minute 29 with 44 seconds on the clock, and after it there is nothing there. From then on the work is Bauer’s: costs him 7 minutes 24, his longest think since move 20, and would have cleared the board at once. After the draw is agreed, White with 2:22, Black with 1:12.
GM Christian Bauer (FRA, 2561)
GM Mihajlo Stojanovic (SRB, 2413)
Verdict
A half point with Black against the highest rated player in the match, out of a game in which Black was never more than a quarter of a pawn worse and was the better side for four moves, is a good result on board two, and Bauer is the strongest opponent Stojanovic has faced this season. There was more in it, and the more does not sit on move 29 alone: 20 minutes 42 on move 10 and 16 minutes 40 on move 16 are 37 minutes spent on two positions with nothing to decide, and they were missing on move 29, when there was. The learning: in a quiet structure the thinking time gets paid back in the position that really asks a question, and a protected passed pawn in the centre is not a complication, it is the advantage itself. The match went to Zürich by 5.5 to 2.5; for the team this was the board where nothing was lost, and for him it is the best half point of his season and one that could have been a whole one.
Moves
½-½
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