Analysis
The game in detail
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244) vs GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402) · ½-½
Board 7, ASK Réti vs SG Zürich · Caro-Kann Defence, Advance Variation, Short System (B12) · 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 seven, ASK Réti against SG Zürich, round seven, played in Zürich. Across the board sits Lucas Brunner, grandmaster, 2402, a hundred and fifty-eight points higher on the list. Jonas Wyss has White, and what this board is supposed to bring the team is settled before the first move: half a point against a grandmaster on board seven is a result the other boards can count on, a whole one is more than anybody here asks for.
Half a point is what it became. In between came a position in which White stood a good pawn better, fourteen moves later one that was barely holdable, and a time scramble that started on move 21 and lasted until move 40.
Three pawn moves, thirty-four minutes
Caro-Kann Advance, Short System: , , , and after White is comfortable, a good half pawn better. costs Wyss ten minutes twenty-four and it is the right move. is a shade less precise than and no problem at all.
Then comes the plan: after eleven minutes forty of thinking, after fourteen minutes ten, after eight minutes three. Thirty-four minutes for three pawn moves, and after the third one the half pawn is gone and the position is level. The pawns have won space, and development paid for it: the knight, the bishop and the rook on the queenside are still standing on b1, c1 and a1, and not one of those three takes any part in the attack.
The clock is not an issue yet, after move ten Wyss has 1:06:27 left on the clock and Brunner 54:22. It becomes one ten moves later. A pawn storm is a plan for pieces that are already placed: before the third pawn move, the question worth asking is which of your own pieces stands better after it than before.
GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402)
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244)
Brunner trades on d4
attacks the knight on c5 and invites : after Black stands a shade better. Brunner thinks for fourteen minutes and plays . A position in which Black stood a shade better turns into one in which White is a good pawn better, and from here on the number behind the name on the other side of the board stops mattering.
was the move. The pawn captures towards the centre, d4 holds e5, and the knight on b1 finally gets c3: , and White is a good pawn better. What was played is , after two and a half minutes. Most players take with the pawn here and they are right: after the queen capture, e5 has no pawn behind it any more, and the queen stands in the middle of the board on a square where it can be attacked. Half of the advantage goes with that.
is sensible, was worth about half a pawn more. After the queen and the knight attack the pawn on e5 twice, it is defended once, and by move 16 the game is level: the whole advantage handed back in two moves. When the opponent trades in the centre, the decision is not that you capture but what you capture with. The pawn towards the centre holds the wedge on e5, the queen does not.
GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402)
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244)
16.Bb5, and the game tips over
There were two ways to deal with the pawn on e5. defends it a second time. gives it away, develops the last piece in return and keeps the position in balance. A pawn for finally getting the last piece into the game is a fair price here.
What was played is , and after it White is clearly worse: the difference to is close to a whole pawn. This is not a question of move order and not a matter of taste: the bishop goes to a square where asks it a question at once, and it is not allowed to go back, because loses the pawn and two moves with it. On top of that, after the pawn on g4 was simply there to be taken. Brunner finds the best move with , and White has to trade on d7.
costs sixteen minutes fifty-two, the longest think of the game, with 18:35 left after the move, and it is the best move: in a position that has just got worse, that is a quarter of an hour well spent. is then the human move, close to half the field trades here, and it is wrong all the same. It hands over the bishop pair voluntarily, before Black had to decide where his king was going. , with an eye on f7, was a good half pawn better. A piece that goes forward needs a square it is allowed to stay on.
GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402)
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244)
The position holds, the clock runs
collects the pawn. White had pushed it to g4 on move eleven at a cost of fourteen minutes; now a black pawn stands there, and it will stand there until move 41. For one move taking it back was still possible and would have cost almost nothing, . What was played is after not quite seven minutes, and after move 20 the clocks read 7:35 against 14:38.
was the break that held the position together, and held it just as well. Almost nobody finds that break here, and Wyss had four and a half minutes for the rest of the game. costs another three quarters of a pawn, and after Black has the better pieces on top of the extra pawn.
From move 24 to move 40 the clock never shows more than two minutes after a move, and after ten of them less than one, and the position holds: with 1:09 left after the move, with 1:05, with 0:42, with 0:36, with 0:44. Not one of those five gives anything away, several of them are moves you hardly find at that speed, and after the fifth White stands no worse than before the first. Black gets no further in the same stretch, although he has five to eight minutes, the extra pawn and the easier position to play. In time trouble the move that is wanted is not the one that does something, it is the one that gives nothing away.
GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402)
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244)
28...Rcc8, the move that turns the game
arrives after thirty-five seconds, with 0:39 left after the move, and takes the pawn. , with an eye on b7 and a6, would have kept it down to one pawn; instead it is two, and the position is barely holdable for White. Then comes , with 0:40 left after the move: the knight attacks the rook and the pawn at the same time, and there is no better move in the position, even if almost nobody plays it here.
was the answer. The pawn defends the rook, Black keeps everything, and after White is level on material again, but Black has the passed pawn on c4 and a clearly winning position. Brunner takes three and a half minutes and plays , with 1:57 left after the move. The rook goes back, b7 falls, , and the material is level again. That is the move that turns the game, and there is little to blame him for: a knight attacking two things at once, under two minutes on the clock, and the retreat is the move that looks safe.
is the only move that wins the pawn back, everything else lets Black pull away again. then gives up the last of it, and , with 1:18 left after the move, is the only move in the position: after White is mated in a few moves. From there to the end he gives nothing away. makes a passed pawn Black has to deal with until he takes it on move 40, takes back the pawn on g4 twenty-two moves after it got there, and after it is rook and pawn against rook and pawn. Drawn.
GM Lucas Brunner (SUI, 2402)
FM Jonas Wyss (SUI, 2244)
Verdict
Half a point with White against a grandmaster a hundred and fifty-eight points higher is exactly what the team needs from board seven, and the second half of this game Wyss earned: seventeen moves in a row with less than two minutes on the clock, ten of them with less than one, among them , which almost nobody finds here, and at the one moment where there was only one move. The first half belongs to the story too. After he stood a good pawn better, would have kept it, and after he stood clearly worse without Brunner having to do anything special about it. The learning comes in two sentences. When there is a trade in the centre, the decision is not that you capture but what you capture with: the pawn towards the centre holds the wedge. And a pawn that can no longer be held is given up with the move that develops the last piece, not with a move that opens a second problem. For the team this half point is a gain; for him it is the game in which he stood better against a grandmaster, then stood lost, and with forty seconds on the clock did not stop looking for the best move.
Moves
½-½
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