Games: Chess:

It is one of the sadder laws of physics that chess columns maintain their shape and size, whatever pressures of length may be exerted by the games they wish to contain. Despite that, we have pleasure in giving highlights of a game of 103 moves that helped decide the European Junior title. Here are the opening moves:

White: A Hnydiuk

Black: D Tyomkin

1 e4 c5 22 Nxc3 Nxc3

2 Nc3 Nc6 23 Bxf7+ Kxf7

3 Bb5 Nd4 24 Qb3+ Re6

4 Bc4 e6 25 Qxc3 Bf8

5 Nf3 Ne7 26 Qc7+ Kg8

6 Nxd4 cxd4 27 Qc4 Qd7

7 Ne2 Nc6 28 d4 Rc8

8 d3 g6 29 Qd5 Bxd6

9 0-0 Bg7 30 Rfc1 Rxc1+

10 a4 0-0 31 Rxc1 exd4

11 Bd2 b6 32 Kf1 Qf7

12 b4 a5 33 Qa8+ Kg7

13 b5 Ne7 34 Bxd6 Rxd6

14 Bb3 d5 35 Qb8 Rd7

15 f3 e5 36 Qxb6 d3

16 Bg5 f6 37 Qe3 d2

17 Bc1 Be6 38 Rd1 Qc4+

18 Ba3 Bf7 39 Kf2 Qxa4

19 exd5 Re8 40 Rxd2 Rxd2+

20 c4 dxc3 41 Qxd2 Qxb5

21 d6 Nd5

From moves 1-25, White gained a clear advantage, won a pawn with 22.Nxc3! and the main question seemed to be whether Black could surround the pawn on d6 before White invaded down the c-file. Then Black fought back and, aided by time-trouble errors by White (28.d4? was a bad miscalculation) he reached an endgame a pawn ahead. Here is the position after 41...Qxb5.

Play continued 42.Qd8 Qc5+ 43.Kg3 Qa7 44.Qd6 a4 45.Qa3 when the next 40 moves were variations on the same theme: Black's king moves out of hiding towards the a-pawn; the white queen checks him around; king escapes again, leaving white queen sufficiently misplaced to edge the a-pawn a square forwards.

After move 84, they reached this position, with White to play. There followed 85.g4+ hxg4 86.fxg4+ Kg6! (86...Kxg4? 87.Qf4+! leads to stalemate) 87.Qe8+ Kg5 88.Qe3+ Kh4! 89.Qe1+ Kh3! 90.Qh1+ Kg3! 91.Qg1+ Kf3 92.Qf1+ Ke3 93.Qe1+ Kf4 94.Qf1+ Kg5 95.Qb5+ Kh4! 96.Qg5+! Kg3! 97.Qe3+ Kg2! At last, no more checks. There followed 98.Qe1 Qb1+ 99.Qxc1 axb1=Q+ 100.Kxb1 Kg3101.Kc2 Kxg4 102.Kd2 Kf3 103.Ke1 f5 and White resigned. Quite a marathon.