A tornado watch means the weather conditions are favorable during the next few hours whereas a warning means a tornado has been sighted or is indicated by weather radar.
Today is overcast and cold with a dripping fog. A good day to look at some games and while looking through some of C.J.S. Purdy's games I found one from a tournament played in Sydney in 1946 that reached an interesting position.
His opponent was Alexander Fryda (aka Frijda) who was of Dutch nationality. Fryda (August 16, 1905 - December 30, 1972, 67 years old) was born in Amsterdam and arrived in Fremantle in February of 1954. Beyond that I could find no other information nor could I locate any information on the tournament in which the game was played.
What caught my attention was the position after black's 28th move. At move 24 Purdy wrote that he found the position "intensely difficult," but managed to come up with what appeared to be a winning plan.
The question was, what was the correct evaluation of the position at move 24 and could white have won against best play?
The answer is, I think, a definite maybe.
After white's 24th move Stockfish evaluates the position as equal. But, it was a difficult position for black to play and on move 28 Fryda missed his best defense. Even so, on his next move he could have forced Purdy to play like an engine to score the point!
C.J.S. Purdy–Alexander Fryda1–0A14Sydney Invitational, Sydney1946Stockfish 15
1.c4 e6 2.g3 f6 3.g2 d5 4.f3 e7 5.0-0 0-0 6.b3 d4 Purdy thought
that it was better to wait until white committed himself to Bb2 before playing
this. 7.d3 c5 8.e4 dxe3 Purdy makes an instructive comment here that if
black does not play this white would not play Bb2, but develop his B on the
c1-h6 diagonal in conjunction with a later f4 and a K-side attack. 9.fxe3 9.xe3 is playable. g4 10.d2 10.c1 f6 11.d4 cxd4 10...c6 11.c3 d7 12.h3 f6 13.f4 with an equal position. 9...c6 10.b2 c7 11.c3 a6 12.e2 d7 13.ad1 fd8 14.d4 cxd4 15.exd4 e8 16.h1 White is better
here so for better or for worse Fryda sacrifices a P in hopes of getting some
play. b5 17.cxb5 Purdy made no comment on this move, which allows black
full equality, but he missed a chance to obtain a winning position. 17.d5
was a tremendous shot. exd5 This is the worst possible move. 17...bxc4
is actually the lesser evil. 18.dxc6 xd1 19.xd1 cxb3 20.e5 bxa2 21.xa2 d8 22.xd8 xd8 23.c4 followed by Nb4 and white is winning. 18.xd5 xd5 19.cxd5 b4 20.d4 xd5 Watch for it! 21.e6 fxe6 22.xe6+ h8 23.xd5 xd5 24.xd5 Threatening Qg8 mate g6 25.xa8 and wins 17...axb5 18.xb5 b6 19.a4 ac8 20.e5 b4 21.c1 bd5 Black's P sacrifice has
justified itself in that white's Bs have been deprived of most of their
strength by the well supported N on d5 and the two Ps, which can be turned
into doubled Ps at any moment, are immobile. Purdy therefore hit upon a plan
to return the P and obtain an endgame with a mobile passed P. 22.c2 xc2
Or else white doubles his Rs. 23.xc2 e3 Purdy commented that expecting
the position to be easy, Fryda got up and walked around, but the position is
very deceptive. I am not sure how Purdy knew what Fryda was thinking. Maybe he
just wanted to stretch his legs or something. 24.c4 Equally good were 24...
Rc8 or ...Bxb5 xc2 25.xb6 xb5 26.axb5 xd4 27.xd4 xd4 28.c4 d5
The purpose of this move was to block the diagonal of white's B, but it's
ineffective. 28...d3 This was the move Purdy expected after which he
thought he could probably win by sacrificing the P on b3, but gave no analysis
to support his belief. 29.b6 xb3 30.b7 d7 31.a5 b5 32.d1 c5 33.c6 xb7 34.xe7+ f8 35.c6 and this position is evaluated as equal by
Stockfish. Shootout results from this position resulted in 5 draws. 28...c5 This is the best move and should save the game. 29.b6 xb6 30.xb6 b4 31.c4 xb3 with a likely draw. 28...c5 29.a1 should also result in
a draw after g6 30.b6 xb6 31.xb6 b4 29.b6 After this black is
technically lost, but he can try to make life difficult for white with 29...
Rxc4 d8 29...xc4 was his best chance. 30.bxc4 xb6 31.c1 d7
In Shootouts white scored 5 wins, but the ganes went over another 50 moves and
at 27 plies the game ended with white have a tablebase forced mate with a R+B
vs B...not something that would be so easy for a human. 30.b7 c7 31.a1 g6 32.a8+ g7 33.xd5 exd5 34.c8 Black resigned. 1–0
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