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Craig van Tilbury vs Asa Hoffmann
"Dustin' Hoffmann" (game of the day Sep-29-2012)
GHI International Open (1978), NY,NY, rd 7, Jul-14
Benoni Defense: Czech Benoni Defense (A56)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

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Kibitzer's Corner
Sep-29-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  Check It Out: The self-pin 47...Qd8 looks bad.
Sep-29-12  newzild: A strange game. Black would normally plan ...f5 in this pawn structure, but instead he diddled around by moving his bits backwards and forwards. No wonder he got "dusted".
Sep-29-12  kevin86: Black CAN take the queen...and get mated.
Sep-29-12  rapidcitychess: A somewhat typical Czech Benoni, insofar that Hoffman's inactive play led to strangulation.
Sep-29-12  RookFile: I don't think black wants to play ....f5 here because White will play exf5 and put a piece on e4, bottling black up. The move he really wants to play is ....Bg5 and get rid of that bishop, but white kept an option of f4 in play to prevent the trade.
Sep-29-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: This particular pun is thus reprised: qv A Hoffman vs Nakamura, 1999.

Strange but true-I got to play both Hoffman(n)s, Asa at the Manhattan Chess Club long ago, and Alejandro in a Dos Hermanas qualifier.

Sep-29-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  perfidious: <newzild> Of course you're correct that Black wanted to play for ....f5, which Hoffman certainly understands, as a great specialist in the Czech Benoni. We once played a number of blitz games in the Czech (as well as in our only serious encounter), but I always played the variation beginning with 6.Bd3, followed by h3, Qe2, long castling and g4 (the old Polugaevsky recipe).
Sep-29-12  Oceanlake: Looked at this last night. Seemed then, and seems now, that Black was trying to win instead of taking the draw around move 21 and was playing come-hither-so-I-may-slay-you.
Sep-29-12  Rama: Have I ever seen so much backing-and-forthing by both sides?
Sep-29-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  eternaloptimist: Yet another game where black lost playing the Czech Benoni. It seems like black gets blasted about 90% of the time in the Czech unless black is rated a lot higher than white. This game has a nice pun as well.
Oct-03-12  newzild: <RookFile> ...g6 then ...f5, a la the King's Indian Defence.
Dec-21-16  parisattack: Hoffman played the Czech in quite a few games later in his career. I enjoyed his book, The Czech Benoni in Action. There is also the Alt-Benoni Verteidigung by Stoljar.

Some of the alternative move orders may help black's cause a bit...but Benonis are difficult to play. Strategically and tactically rich (like the Grunfeld) but black often needs a 9th rank for lack of space (unlike the Grunfeld).

In this game, black obviously played much too passively. <rapidcitychess: A somewhat typical Czech Benoni, insofar that Hoffman's inactive play led to strangulation.>

Sep-28-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  louispaulsen88888888: Perhaps his book should have been titled The Czech Benoni Inaction. It doesn’t seem like a good plan to just dither around and wait for a mistake.

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