Where did the idea come from?

Ankit Rajpara, a young Indian grandmaster, won surprisingly against Arkadij Naiditsch in the first round of the big open in Qatar.

Early in the opening he came up with a funny manoeuvre in order to open the h-file. Later on he sacrificed a piece in order to penetrate in the self-same h-file and win the game.

Naiditsch (2719) – Rajpara (2494)
Doha 26.11.2014

1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 Bf5 4.Nf3 e6 5.Be2 Ne7 6.0–0 Bg6 7.Nbd2 Nf5 8.c4 Be7 9.g4

9…Nh6 10.h3 Ng8 11.Ne1 h5 12.Ng2 hxg4 13.hxg4 dxc4 14.Nxc4 Be4 15.f3 Bd5 16.Nce3 c5 17.Nf4 Bc6 18.d5 exd5 19.Nfxd5 Bh4 20.Kg2 Bg3!?

21.Kxg3 Qh4+ 22.Kf4 Qh2+ 23.Ke4 Nd7 24.Kd3 0–0–0 25.Kc2 Nxe5

26.Qd2 Nf6 27.Ne7+ Kb8 28.Nxc6+ Nxc6 29.Bd3 Nb4+ 30.Kb1 Qc7 31.g5 Rxd3 32.Qe1 Nfd5 33.Ng4 Nb6 34.Qe5 Qxe5 35.Nxe5 Rd4 36.Nxf7 Rh2 37.Be3

37…Nd3 38.Bc1 Nc4 39.Rd1 Nxc1
0–1

A fantastic game that I greatly enjoyed. The fact that White could have kept a boring edge after 21.Nf6+ is sort of irrelevant. Of course Naiditsch wanted the unbalanced position and took the piece! Unfortunately the position is quite promising for Black…

I was sure I had seen this idea in the opening before and shortly after a blog post by a friend of mine made me aware of where I had found it – In Grandmaster Preparation – Strategic Play!

1 thought on “Where did the idea come from?”

  1. I’ve seen the same motif in Rohde- Polgar, New York 1992, although the position was quite different: 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 f5 4.d4 e4 5.Ng5 h6 6.Nh3 g5 7.Ng1! (1:0, 30).

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