Mohd Nabil Azman Hisham - Tan Khai Boon : 0-1

Round 8 saw the tournament leaders - Mohd Nabil Azman Hisham and Tan Khai Boon both with 6 points battle against each other on board 1.




Nabil Azman Hisham (left) vs Tan Khai Boon

Mohd Nabil Azman Hisham - Tan Khai Boon
National Championship, Round 8, 19.6.2010

Analysed by Centaur (Hairulov+Rybka 4)

1.d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 c5 3. d5 e6 4. c4 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. Nc3 g6 The Modern Benoni.  This probably show that Tan Khai Boon is playing for a win because Modern Benoni is quite a risky opening. Black's permit white to have a strong central pawns majority but black will unbalanced the position later. 
7. e4 Bg7 8.Be2 0-0 9.0-0 Re8


10.Qc2 a6 11.Be3 Theory recommend 11.a4.

The idea of 11.a4 is to stop black's queen side expansion with b5

Nabil's choice 11.Be3 seems strange because usually white play Be3-Qd2 straight away against black Bg7 fianchetto formation. The problem is white's queen have already move to c2. 11...b5 12.Rad1

...Khai Boon using quite a long time for his 12th move and he has used 50 minutes so far! The obvious move is 12...b5 13.Na4 Nxe4 winning a pawn but wait!.....white actually can play 13...e5!? and if 14.bxc3 exf6! with wild game. 

Azman Hisham (standing) watching his son play....

12...Nbd7 Khai Boon probably saw that 12...b5 is too messy and choose to develop his piece. The problem is he has spent nearly 45 minutes just to play his 12th move. 13.Nd2 black is threatening 13...b5 and 14.e5 didn't work anymore because black's Nbd7 cover the e5 square. 13...Qe7 Black add pressure against white e4 pawn. 14.Bg5 h6 15.Bh4

It seems that black can win the e4 pawn after 15...g5 16.Bg3 b4 17.Na4 Nxe4 18.Nxe4 Qxe4 19.Qxe4 Rxe4  winning a pawn but actually white can get it back after 20.Bd3 Re8 21.Bxd6 with a better position. Nabil is really a good tactician! 15...Nb6 16.Rfe1 Bd7 17.f4 Qf8 18.Bf3 b4 19.Ne2 Rac8 20.Nc4 Ba4 21.b3 Nxc4 22.Qxc4 Bb5 23.Qc2 h5 24.h3 

24...a5 25.Kh2 Nd7 26.g4 hxg4 27.Bxg4 Rc7 28.Bg3 f5 29.exf5 gxf5 30.Bxf5 Bxe2 31.Bg6?? 

A terrible blunder. Nabil should have maintain the pressure with 31.Be6 but probably he try to win on time because Khai Boon have about 3 minutes left.  Nabil probably forget that there's 30 seconds increment for each move so Khai Boon can recover and  add more time.  Bxd1 32.Qxd1 Rxe1 33.Qxe1 Nf6 

Now it easy for black. He is a rook up and white's attack has fizzle out. 34.Qe6+ Kh8 35.f5 Re7 36.Qxd6 Re2+ 37.Kg1 Qxd6 38.Bxd6 Ne4 39.Bf4 Bd4+ 40.Kh1 Nf2+ 41.Kg2 Nd3+ 42.Kf3 Rf2+ 0-1 Black resign. White resign. A tragic finish for the young boy.