To me, Anand's 13. g5
instead of 13. gxh5
was very surprising.
[Title "Vishwanathan Anand vs Nafiz Ediz İlhan, chess24.com"]
[FEN ""]
1. Nf3 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. d4 O-O 6. h3 e5 7. d5 a5 8. g4 Nfd7 9. Be3 Na6 10. Rg1 Ndc5 11. h4 Kh8 12. h5 gxh5 13. g5 Bg4 14. Rxg4 hxg4 15. Nh4 Qd7 16. Be2 g3 17. Bg4 Qe7 18. Bf5 gxf2+ 19. Kxf2 f6 20. Qh5 Bh6 21. Qxh6 Nd3+ 22. Ke2 fxg5 23. Ng6+ 1-0
My reasons are:
- With rook on
g1
,13. gxh5
gives it a direct open file against the king. 13. g5
allowed13... Bg4
, necessitating14. Rxg4
, an exchange sacrifice for the attack to continue.- The fundamental idea of any pawn storm, such as that attempted by Anand, is to exchange pawns in front of the king.
It is clear that Anand considers gxh5, but finds it so bad that he says "I might have been a bit careless here"!
This completely took me by surprise.
Why is 13. gxh5
so bad? And 13. g5
much better?