Dylan Sharp Vs. Harvey Williamson (G4)

[MikeB]

I just wanted to resign in a position where I'm two pawns up!

{White resigns.}

[d]8/5k1p/8/1r6/2bBP3/2P2P2/p6P/R5K1 w - -

0-1

Thanks for the game Harvey! I apologize if my defense was too disappointing, but in fact I couldn't have defended better! You delivered the strongest attack, congrats on the win!

I'd also like to thank everyone that followed this game, correspondence games aren't about the moves, but about the memories, and I'll never forget this one!

You did well - g4 is known as the worst possible opening move for white ...

[Graham Banks]

Good battle!

[Jouni]

So we have a proof 1.g4 loses. Only 19 opening moves left and chess is solved . But seriously thanks for interesting game both! How about 1.f3 next?

[Spliffjiffer]

thank you Ovyron and Harvey for this game, well played by both of you imho,36...Rxd4 is a nice bm-testposition as well afaict.
though im still not confinced that there is any 1st move by white that is loosing by force but what do i know.
2.h3 and 2.e3 looking more natural from my pov but my engines dont think that way and agree that 2.g5 is a good move (investigation time around 3 hours)
i wish you both a happy new year and some nice chessgames, thx again!
btw: best move was making the game public again

regards, Peer

[Ovyron]

Thanks guys.

How about 1.f3 next?

Ah, the thing with 1.g4 is that the variations that come out of it are very sharp, white might be losing but black's move choices are very limited, in the entire game Harvey only played 3 moves that I didn't expect, and the rest might have been forced (black plays something else and it's a draw!) unless they transposed back by force (except, of course, near the end of the game, when the chosen endgame was decided and black has the luxury of deciding how to win).

In 1.f3, or 1.e4 e6, for that matter, the tree explodes, and now I don't know what the opponent would play, so I could be surprised by opponent's moves and the game is decided by who plays better moves, but in that case I better play a sound opening, don't I?

What I think is the most likely case is that either 1.g4?? loses by force, or 2.g5?? loses by force, because the rest just went downhill faster... but since I lost a position I guaranteed that I could draw what I think about it might not matter

[Alayan]

This game was entertaining to follow, thanks to both players.

[Ras]

Good game, thanks to both players!

Some questions:

1) Early on, White sacrificed a central pawn. On move 10, I count only two tempi in compensation, and with the quiet 10th move, that goes even down to one tempo. Usually, a pawn is considered about three tempi in the opening. Does that make the pawn sacrifice dubious?

2) Especially because the more obvious pawn to sacrifice would have been the weak one on g5. Maybe it would have been possible to distract Black to this pawn while launching a counter attack in the centre?

3) The quality sacrifice in move 20 eliminated Black's passed pawn and nominally kept the material balance the same as in the move before. On the other hand, it also got Black rid of his only isolated pawn. After that, White still had the problem on g5, but Black had no obvious weakness for attack. Does that make sense?

[Ovyron]

1) Early on, White sacrificed a central pawn. On move 10, I count only two tempi in compensation, and with the quiet 10th move, that goes even down to one tempo. Usually, a pawn is considered about three tempi in the opening. Does that make the pawn sacrifice dubious?

It makes 1.g4 dubious What is happening here is that you're comparing the pawn sacrifice and resulting positions to what is normal in chess, here the pawn sacrifice is the best white has because anything else leaves it worse than without the pawn sacrifice, so the tempi gotten back just leaves things like after 1.g4 (where white is already down some pawn and a half, whatever that means in a position with equal material.)

Against these black moves giving away that pawn is forced, OR white wouldn't have played 2.g5 in the first place (because then some other second white move by white instead of g5 would have been better than g5+no pawn sacrifice.) If you don't plan on the pawn sac you don't play g5.

Please note that my mainline of defense was with 18. Rc2?? because I hadn't seen 18...Re6!! which kills white (or... white suffers a premature death, since it died anyway). Perhaps if I saw 18. Rc2?? Re6!! then I wouldn't have played 2.g5 but the horizon can only be so large and you'll miss things beyond it. Frankly, there's probably a similar killer move on move 18 for another white second move, but who ventures to try to guess how a game would go for an alternative up to move 18?

2) Especially because the more obvious pawn to sacrifice would have been the weak one on g5. Maybe it would have been possible to distract Black to this pawn while launching a counter attack in the centre?

Oh, you mean instead of 2. g5? Well, there's some variations that look REALLY, REALLY scary, specially ones where black goes insane and throws material at white as if it was rubbish and the variations explode and after seeing them I was like "Harvey would surely have all the fun in these!"

I even recall that my mainline for 2.g5 was the only promising variation that I saw and that without it I'd not have made the claim that white could hold. Like, I thought all the alternative moves of 2.g5 could lose, so, rectifying, had I seen 18. Rc2?? Re6!! I might not have made the claim that I could hold 1.g4 at all, to me what was played was white's last line of defense!

3) The quality sacrifice in move 20 eliminated Black's passed pawn and nominally kept the material balance the same as in the move before. On the other hand, it also got Black rid of his only isolated pawn. After that, White still had the problem on g5, but Black had no obvious weakness for attack. Does that make sense?

There's no line where black has weakness for any attack, white is defending and by move 20 things are so bad that Rxc6 is the only move that doesn't lose on the spot! Believe me, when the position first appeared on my analysis as a possible mainline I saw how bad the positions after Rxc6 looked, and I tried my best to find some line that I could play instead. But, no, if the position after 24.bxc3 is lost then the position after 19...Bg4 is lost. If you're interested you can tell me what other ideas you have for white to try on move 20, but there's some "sudden death" moves that black can play that at least killed all my ideas that didn't include killing that murderous Knight on c6.

[Ovyron]

(I just realized how violent the words I'm choosing to use sound, but I'm trying to convey how after 1.g4 white doesn't have any chance to counter-attack and it's exclusively a struggle to survive)

[Uri Blass]

You confused the order of moves in the pgn during the game without changing the position.

Here is the full game for people to analyze

[pgn][Event "PGN Import"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Dylan Sharp"]
[Black "Harvey Williamson"]
[Result "*"]
[BlackElo "2400"]
[ECO "A00"]
[Opening "Grob (Fric-Kilibr) Opening"]
[Time "03:35:48"]
[Variation "1...d5"]
[WhiteElo "2400"]
[TimeControl "1/0:300"]
[Termination "unterminated"]
[PlyCount "96"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. g4 d5 2. g5 e5 3. d4 exd4 4. Nf3 c5 5. Bg2 Ne7 6. c3 dxc3 7. Nxc3 Nbc6
8. O-O d4 9. Ne4 Ng6 10. a3 Bg4 11. Bd2 Bd6 12. Rc1 O-O 13. Nxc5 Bxc5 14.
Rxc5 Qd7 15. Qb3 Rad8 16. Re1 Rfe8 17. Qd3 b6 18. Rcc1 Bf5 19. e4 Bg4 20.
Rxc6 Qxc6 21. Nxd4 Qc5 22. Be3 Ne5 23. Qc3 Qxc3 24. bxc3 Rc8 25. f3 Be6 26.
Nb5 Red8 27. Bd4 Nc6 28. Be3 a6 29. Nd4 Ne5 30. Rc1 Nc4 31. Bf4 Nxa3 32.
Bf1 a5 33. Ba6 Rc5 34. Be3 Bc4 35. Bb7 Rc7 36. Ra1 Rxd4 37. Bxd4 Nc2 38.
Rc1 Rxb7 39. Rxc2 a4 40. Rd2 f5 41. gxf6 a3 42. Be3 Ra7 43. Rd8+ Kf7 44.
fxg7 Kxg7 45. Rd1 a2 46. Ra1 Ra5 47. Bxb6 Rb5 48. Bd4+ Kf7 *
[/pgn]