When opportunity knocks

One of the greatest attacking players of all time the creative Latvian Grandmaster Mikhail Tal had a genius for posing problems for his opponent with tempting ways to go wrong, combined with a gift for producing hair raising complications. Botvinnk was amazed by Tal’s intuitive skills and also by his ability to calculate complex variations.

Latvian Grandmaster Normunds Miezis, a visitor to England during the memorable events of the last few years, shows here how to introduce complications and intuitively attack an opponent who, through a series of errors, opens the barn door.

Normunds Miezis (2540) - Nigel Rodney Davies (2478) [A21]
European Union Championships Liverpool ENG (8), 16.09.2008

1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Bb4 3.g3 Bxc3 4.dxc3 d6 5.e4 Nc6 6.Bg2 Be6 7.Qe2 Qd7 8.h3 Nge7 9.Nf3 h6 10.b3 0–0 11.Ba3 a5 12.Rd1 Rfd8 13.Nd2 Na7 14.f4 f6 15.f5 Bf7 16.Nf1 b5 17.Ne3 bxc4 18.bxc4 Qa4 19.Bc1 Nac8 20.g4 Nb6 21.Bf1

g5? lashing out and passing the initiative to White 22.fxg6 Nxg6 23.Qf3 Nxc4 better were 23...Rab8 or Nf4 24.Nf5 Be6? 25.Nxh6+ Kh7 26.g5

Qc2?? a very weak move handing the game to White on a plate 27.Nf5! Kg8 28.gxf6 the position is hopeless now and Black could resign 28...Kf8 29.Ng7 Bf7 30.Bh6 White's pieces pile in for the kill

30...Rdb8 31.Ne6+ Kg8 32.Bxc4 Rb2? 33.Rg1! Kh8 34.Bg7+ Kg8 35.Rxg6!

1–0. A comfortable win for Miezis exploiting Black's inability to handle the tactics.