Trent And Kashlinskaya's Bullet Battle

NM CoachJKane

Updated: Jun 4, 2022, 9:03 AM | 2

Can you keep up with the tactics from this wild match?

Hello chess friends,

IM Lawrence Trent has performed well in the current edition of the I'm Not a GM tournament. He's won his first two matches decisively, but my favorite game was actually a bullet win by his latest opponent, IM Alina Kashlinskaya. She had black in this wild game. See if you can keep up with the IMs in the key moments. It was a bullet game, so it's not surprising that Black's initiative prevailed over White's winning material advantage.

White won a couple of pawns early, but Black started to develop counterplay. How can White avoid any king safety issues and then work on converting the extra material?

Instead, White's Rg5 gave Black a fantastic opportunity to attack.

Suddenly, White had to be extremely precise to survive. Can you find the narrow path to salvation?

It's not surprising that Trent couldn't find all of those only moves under time pressure. Now, see if you can find how Kashlinskaya put the game away.

What a finish! While we're here, see if you can refute one more defensive that White could have attempted.

How did you do on the puzzles? Let me know in the comments. Here's the full game. Considering that there was only one minute per side, they both played pretty well.

Good luck to Lawrence going forward in the tournament and to both players on their quests to reach GM and not be invited back to this event next year!

NM Jeremy Kane

Jeremy Kane is a National Master and three-time Wisconsin state champion. He is the Director of Training Content for Chess.com. He has been teaching chess in person and online for over 15 years and has designed hundreds of lessons, available on chess.com/lessons. He is the author of Starting Out The Trompowsky on Chessable and The Next To Last Mistake, a book on defensive ideas in chess.

He is the developer of the Caro-Kane Variation of the Caro-Kann Defense.

email: [email protected]

Twitter/X: @chessmensch

Trent And Kashlinskaya's Bullet Battle

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