Freestyle chess is now popular because of the abundance of knowledge about the standard starting position. It randomizes the opening and sidesteps memorization by shuffling the pieces on the back row from the starting position for both white and black. The pawns remain on the second and seventh ranks.
In a surprise upset, 21-year-old Vincent Keymer won the Weissenhaus Freestyle Chess Tournament this month, earning him $200,000. It was an elite, eight-player tournament consisting of the world’s best players. Keymer, however, who is ranked 19th in the world, was given the eighth spot as Germany’s best player. In the semifinals, he defeated the world’s top rated player, Magnus Carlsen, and then beat the world’s second-highest rated player in the finals, Fabiano Caruana.
This week’s position is from Keymer’s win against Caruana in the finals. Keymer is white; Caruana, black. The position may look chaotic, but there are several key points. First, black’s king is under fire in the center of the board. Second, white’s bishop on f3 aims at the black queen and threatens to dominate the f3-a8 diagonal.
Black’s advanced a3 and b4 pawns may appear ominous but are handicapped. Its bishop blocks the b4 pawn and the a3 pawn has no support in the event the b4 pawn is able to move forward.
Given this, what move did Keymer make that caused Caruana to immediately resign?
White’s rook pins black’s knight, but it also blocks white’s d5 pawn from moving to d6, which would open up the f3-a8 diagonal for white’s bishop. Keymer thus slid his rook over to a6. The rook threatens to go to a8 with the support of its f3 bishop after pawn to d6, which points white’s bishop directly at black’s queen as white’s bishop and rook overtake that corner of the board, controlling all the angles. This either mates or crushes black.
Objectively, black’s best reply is queen to c8 followed by pawn to d6. Black lifts its rook to e6 and white’s rook drops onto a8 (see next diagram).
Black’s best reply is to take the white rook with its queen. However, if the black shields its queen with knight to b8, pawn to d7 is devastating.
After Keymer moved his rook to a6, black might have tried instead having its rook capture white’s knight on e3. This removes its support of the white e5 pawn and takes some teeth out of white’s attack. But it also loses the exchange. After white’s queen takes the rook on e3, black’s bishop wins the e5 pawn, which diffuses some of white’s pressure along the f3-a8 diagonal. However, rook to e1 by white creates a powerful queen-rook battery and eyes e8 (see next diagram).
The lesson this week is that chess is often about finding the right angles.
Reach Eric Morrow at ericmorrowlaw@gmail.com or (505) 327-7121.
