70 years Correspondence Chess in Bulgaria: Win against SIM Schwenck, Mathias

I was able to win my game with Black against SIM Schwenck, Mathias of Germany, http://www.iccf-webchess.com/game?id=417904. He is around 45 years old and lives in Freising, a small town near Munich. This game was characterized by my opponent consistently being in time trouble. He would make no move for 40 or 45 days, and then shoot off the moves till next time control taking only a few hours for each move! I was always in doubt, whether to play fast and pressurise my opponent, or play at my own pace. 

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 b5 5.Bg5 exd5 6.cxd5 h6 7.Bxf6 Qxf6 8.Qc2 Be7 9.e4 Qb6 10.a4 bxa4 11.e5

Novelty? The ChessOK opening tree gives only 11. Nbd2 Na6 12. Qxa4 Nb4 13. Be2 O-O 14. O-O d6, quoting Nguyen Huynh Hui - Radziewicz Iweta (POL), Budapest (Hungary), 2008, 0-1.

From the ICCF database, I could find:

11.Qxa4 Qxb2 12.Nbd2 O-O 13.Rb1 Qf6 14.e5 Qg6 15.d6 Bxd6 {1/2-1/2(22) Schmidt, Theo (2375) - Sadowski, Marek (2502) / WC30/ct06, ICCF 2010}

11.Nc3 Na6 12.e5 Nb4 13.Qe4 O-O 14.Bc4 d6 15.O-O dxe5 {1-0(30) Lizarzaburu, Odilo Blanco (2428) - Santos, Marcos Antonio dos (2427) / BRA-42anos/M (BRA), ICCF 2011}

11.Qxa4 Qxb2 12.Nbd2 O-O 13.Rb1 Qf6 14.Bb5 Qf4 15.O-O a5 {1/2-1/2(29) Brodt, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (2396) - Zuev, Denis Vladimirovich (2393) / RUS/Silver-2011 (RUS), ICCF 2011}

Anyway, the pawn push seems premature and does not seem to have anything to recommend it.

11...O-O 12.Bc4 d6 13.O-O dxe5 14.Nc3 Nd7 15.Rfe1 a6 16.Nd2 ?!

Better may be 16. Nxa4 or 16. Qxa4


16...Kh8 17.Bd3 Qc7 18.Nc4 Nb6 19.Nxb6

And now Nxe5 looks better.

19...Qxb6 20.Nxa4 Qc7 21.b4 c4 22.Re4 Qd8 23.Rxc4 Rb8 24.Nc5

With a cursory look, it may seem that White has an advantageous position, all his pieces are active and he has solid control of the c file. But soon Black's Bishop pair will come into its own.  


24...Rb6 25.Qe2 ?!


25. Bf1 may be better.

25...Rd6 26.Rc2 Rxd5 27.Bxa6 Bf5 28.Rcc1 Qd6 29.Qf3 Bg6 30.Bf1 


By now, all the White pieces have been pushed back! Here it was difficult to decide between Rd4 and e4. Finally, I chose Rd4 in spite of the lower IdeA score.

30...Rd4 31.Ra6 Qd8

32.Qa3 ?

32. Qb7 was necessary

32...Kh7 33.b5 Qd5 34.Rc6 e4 

And here 35. Qc3 may have been better.

35.Qb3 Qf5 36.b6 ?

36. Qh3 would have prolonged the fight

36...Bg5 37.Re1 e3 38.fxe3 Rd2 39.Re2 ?

 Time remaining: 24 h; Nd3 was necessary.It may be recalled that in ICCF, upon making a move, 24 hrs get added to your time. So you always have at least 24 hrs to make each move.

39...Rfd8 40.b7 Rd1 41.Rf2 Qe5 42.e4 Qd4 43.Nd3 Bxe4 44.Qxd1 Bxc6 45.Qb1
Rb8 46.Kh1 Rxb7 47.Rb2 Ra7 $1 48.Ne5+ Be4 49.Bd3 Bxd3 50.Nxd3 g6 51.Qf1
Rd7 52.Rf2 f5 53.Ne1 Qa1 54.Nc2 Qa4 55.Qb1 h5 56.Rf1 h4


White has 1 day to move 60.

57.Rd1 h3 58.Rxd7+ Qxd7 59.Qg1 Bd2 60.Qd1 Qd5 0-1

Here White resigned, but not before consuming 45 days of the available 50! With this win, I achieved my second GM norm, and tied for the first place along with GM Stephan, Prof. Dr. Jürgen, crosstable at https://www.iccf.com/EventCrossTable.aspx?id=32000. GM Weizsäcker, Prof.Dr. Robert K. Frhr. von has one more game remaining, but with just seven pieces, the Lomonosov bases don't forebode well for him..