Jyrki Heikkinen – Marko Parkkinen, 5 + 5 minutes, Helsinki, Finland, August 2009
1.d4 d5 2.e4 dxe4 3.Nc3 e5 4.Qh5
"What's this?" my opponent asked about this provoking queen move. We have played some BDG games earlier, but few players are interested in analyzing these variations.
4...Qxd4 5.Be3 Qd6 6.Rd1 Qe6 7.Nxe4 Nf6 8.Nxf6+
8...Qxf6?? 9.Nf3?
We didn't see that 9.Bg5 wins the queen because of the threat 10.Rd8#.
9...Nc6 10.Bb5 Bd6
11.Ng5!?
I have plenty of justifications for playing strange moves like this. First, I want to confuse the opponent. The knight doesn't seem to do anything on g5, but it does: it annoys the opponent. Second, I want to provoke the opponent to create weaknesses. Black can drive the knight away with h6, but that could become a target of attack, especially if Black castled kingside.
As a bonus, the move sets a simple trap: 11...O-O?? 12.Qxh7#. Finally, thanks to the unfamiliar opening, my opponent had much less time than me, so I wanted to complicate the position, and make his game even more difficult.
11...h6?
11...Bf5 -/+.
12.Ne4 Qe7 13.O-O O-O
14.Bxh6!
This was quite an instant sacrifice, based on my gut feeling rather than real calculation. I think I have won about 80 % of the games in which I have sacrificed a bishop on h6, so usually I don't have to calculate.
To my surprise, the sacrifice was perfectly correct this time: Rybka recommends it, too.
14...gxh6?
This loses. Rybka suggests a very sharp variation that starts with 14...Nd4 15.Bd3 gxh6 16.Qxh6 f5 17.Bc4+ +/=.
15.Qxh6
15...f5
15...f6 16.Bc4+ Be6 17.Bxe6+ Qxe6 18.Qg6+ Kh8 19.Rd3 Rf7 20.Nxf6! (20.Rh3+?? Qxh3! -+) +-.
16.Bc4+ Rf7 17.Nf6+ 1-0
It's quite fitting that the knight that provoked h6 decides the game.
Afterwards it would be tempting to claim that the game followed a logical plan: after provoking a weakness by 11.Ng5, I simply exploited it by 14.Bxh6. Who knows, maybe I had a subconscious plan because many BDG games of mine have followed this same pattern.
