Charles Palmer: Epic game v GM Keith Arkell
Eccles player Charles Palmer with an ECF rating of 1679 played an epic game against grandmaster Keith Arkell in the Spring Chess Challenge, and can consider himself most unfortunate not to have come away with a win.
Charles, playing white, had a slight but enduring advantage for most of the game. In response to the Advance Variation of the French Defence, Keith played the Wade Variation, which is a sophisticated method for black of exchanging off the “problematic” French Defence white squared bishop. Unfortunately for Keith, it didn’t seem to free his position very much. Charles secured domination of the c-file with doubled rooks and queen, even penetrating to the seventh rank with his rooks.
By move 32, Charles had built up a most promising position. He now needed to find a stroke of tactical genius. Could he find it?? YES, he could!!
The highlight of the game is a fine knight sacrifice (32. Nxd5!!)followed up by the equally brilliant 33. e6!! These two moves really set Keith’s position rocking, and he had to utilise all his grandmaster cunning and skill to keep in the game.
Unfortunately for Charles, he was running short of time and this was putting him under heavy pressure. I suspect that even another grandmaster might have had difficulty pressing home the advantage under such conditions.
Perhaps the crucial moment comes on move 34, where the engine suggests Rc7 for white. After 34…f6, 35. Rxa7 Re8 36. Rb7, white stands at +2.45, nearly two and a half pawns in value ahead, and even a grandmaster might have struggled to pull this back.
As Charles says: “For context, when I opted to trade queens around move 38 I had one minute left on the clock, to Keiths approx 17 minutes. With no increment it was simply a way to keep playing before the inevitable (Charles loses on time)”
I fully understand and sympathise with this. I’m sure most of would have done the same thing.
By simplifying, and especially by exchanging queens, Keith’s problems evaporated and when the inevitable happened and Charles lost on time, he had an advantage of -2.0 according to my engine, easily sufficient for a grandmaster to win.
Anyway, this was a heroic effort from Charles and he deserves all our congratulations. I’m sure Barbara will agree when I say that Eccles Chess has got yet another star for the future.
Many thanks to Eccles player James Buckley for his indepth analysis.
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