IMAGINE you were sit ting in Black’s chair in this week’s game.
Your opponent plays the first new move in an extremely complex opening. You make with the most natural reply.
And he answers with a stunning rook sacrifice that convinces you to resign.
It seems hard to lose a game by making a single, common-sense move like 22 . . . Nde5. But welcome to the world of the Najdorf Variation of the Sicilian Defense.
White’s attack, beginning with 12 Ne4, became instantly famous due to a Mikhail Tal victory more than 50 years ago — and was almost as quickly forgotten after an apparent refutation was found, beginning with 12 . . . h6.
But in the past year, the variation has undergone intense grandmaster analysis. Everything in this week’s game had been played before until 22 Qf4.
In the Internet post-mortems, analysts argued that Black should have ignored White’s attack and played the cold-blooded 22 . . . a5!?.
But after 22 . . . Nde5 23 Rxh6!! Black had had enough. The main line runs 23 . . . Qxh6 24 Nf6+! Kh8 25 Bg5, trapping the queen, and then 25 . . . Qh7 26 Nxh7 Kxh7 27 Qh4+.
There are pretty finishes after 27 . . . Kg6 28 Rf6+! and 27 . . . Kg8 28 Bf6! gxf6 29 Qxf6, threatening 30 Qg5+ and Rf6-h6.