Chess: Face keeps its trap open

KETEVAN ARAKHAMIA has just the right sort of face to encourage her opponents to fall into traps. Serious with a pleasant smile, she wears the sort of guileless expression that can render inoperative a player's natural sense of danger. Meeting her in the sixth round of the Hastings International Tournament, Matthew Sadler was doing well for the first 29 moves. With 9. cxd5, he adopted an aggressive formation against her King's Indian. He lured his opponent's knight to b4, then persuaded her it could do no better than return to c7 to support the b5 advance; and finally he justified his whole formation with 21. e5, exchanging a pair of pawns to give himself a passed d-pawn and bring the knight from f2 to e4.

Then Arakhamia played 29 . . . Rf8. If White had suspected anything, he would surely have played 30. Ne7+. Instead, he decided to chase the knight from d4 and played 30. Bc5?? falling straight into the trap. After 30 . . . Qg5] it was all over. 31. Qxg5 allows mate in three beginning with 31 . . . Ne2+ and Rf1+. Meanwhile, Black threatens Qxd5 or Qxd2 followed by Ne2+. Realising that 31. Ne3 loses the queen to Nf3+ and that 31. Ne7+ Kh7 would not help matters (the bishop and queen are still attacked), Sadler tried a swindle of his own with 31. Nf6+ hoping for 31 . . . Bxf6 32. Qxg5 Bxg5 33. Bxd4, but he had to give up when Arakhamia took with the rook.

----------------------------------------------------------------- White: Sadler ----------------------------------------------------------------- Black: Arakhamia ----------------------------------------------------------------- 1 d4 Nf6 12 Nf2 h6 23 d6 Re6 2 c4 g6 13 Be3 h5 24 Bb4 Nd4 3 Nc3 Bg7 14 Bb5 Ba6 25 Nfe4 Nxe4 4 e4 d6 15 0-0 Bxb5 26 Nxe4 f5 5 f3 0-0 16 axb5 a6 27 Nc3 e4 6 Bg5 c5 17 bxa6 Rxa6 28 fxe4 fxe4 7 d5 e6 18 Ra3 Nc7 29 Nd5 Rf8 8 Qd2 exd5 19 Rfa1 Rxa3 30 Bc5 Qg5 9 cxd5 b6 20 Rxa3 b5 31 Nf6+ Rxf6 10 a4 Na6 21 e5 dxe5 White resigns 11 Nh3 Nb4 22 Bxc5 Re8 With two rounds left to play at Hastings, Nunn and Krasenkov led with 5 1/2 points, ahead of Arakhamia 4; Hebden, Gurevich and Hennigan 3 1/2; Sadler 3; Rogers 2 1/2; Barua and Sherbakov 2. -----------------------------------------------------------------