Peoria January Tornado

I recently played in the Peoria January Tornado and faced off against two of my stronger students - Advaith and Jason. Both played very well and, in fact, I could have been in trouble against Advaith in the second round if he had found the best continuation.

In the final round, I had an interesting Benoni which entered fairly unique territory rather early.

The following position occurred after 11. ...0-0:

(From game: Krishnamurthy-Karagianis)

Here white tried the ambitious 12. g4?!
After which I played 12. ...h6 intending if 13. g5 hxg5 14. fxg5 Ne5! with an advantage. The game continued:

13. h4 h5
locking up the kingside
14. g5 Ng4
15. Rg1
white is thinking of sacrificing the exchange on g4 to open an attack on the king (maybe via the h-file) but he doesn't have enough pieces in the neighborhood to make it work. This move is too optimistic. He should have tried perhaps 15. Bd2.
15. ...Re8
16. Bd2 c4!
A pawn sacrifice with the idea of opening lines to attack, for example Qb6 (hitting b2 and g1) or even Rc8 (lining up on the c-file in case white decides to castle queenside).
17. Bc2 b5
The main idea of my pawn pushes is to make 0-0-0 look scary for white, but now he blunders...
18. Nxb5?? Qb6!
The rook on g1 is hanging. White loses the knight, and soon after lost the game.

----

My next tournament will be the USAT, where again I am playing with three students as my teammates. Our average team rating is 1916.