Classical Game Recap: White vs the Philidor Hanham Variation
Will I ever stop losing as White in these team tournament games?
Round 3 of the Sacramento Chess Club Team Championship. I know enough about my opponent to expect a fierce battle over the board. I think I can win, but it’ll take a lot of work to prove it!
Time Control: 60 minutes with 15 second increment per move.
White: Me (1658 USCF)
Black: Abel Martinez (1652 USCF)
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6
We’ve got another Philidor on the board!
3.d4 Nd7
This is a line that I haven’t run into OTB yet, but I’ve seen it many times in Alekhine’s games, as this was one of his pet lines. It’s known as the Hanham variation. In general I think at best Black has a slightly worse position that is solid, and that White’s best chance lies in slowly increasing their space advantage and keeping pieces on the board. I’ve been burned many times by over-pressing against the Philidor. So, my plan is to play to the strategic strengths of the position patiently.
4.Bc4
In general, this is strong against the Philidor. In some lines, White threatens Ng5, with a strong attack on f7.
4…c6
This move appears slow, but it creates space for the Black queen, and mitigates some tactics involving Bxf7 and Ng5 followed by Ne6, potentially trapping the queen.
5.O-O Be7
The idea is to prevent Ng5 and get closer to castling.
6.c3?!
A prosaic choice, and not that bad for White, but not the critical continuation: 6.dxe5! dxe5 7.Ng5 Bxg5 8.Qh5 Qe7 9.Qxg5 Qxg5 10.Bxg5 Nc5 11.f3 Be6 12.Nd2. This line, or something similar, shows up in numerous chessable courses and is a direct refutation of Black’s opening play. Hence, I plan on studying and adding it to the rotation of lines I regularly review. Here’s Giri’s assessment of the resulting position:

6…Ngf6 7.Re1 O-O
At this position, it feels like a standard Ruy Lopez or Italian configuration, and that’s how I decided to play the position.
8.a4!?
This move does have precedent in master play, but it’s not particularly strong. I think the reason this move is not necessary is:
There is no hook on b5 to take advantage of (compare to 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.O-O Be7 6.d3 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.a4 - the tension and constant threat of axb5 makes this a particularly useful move)
Owing to the knight being on d7 and not c6, there is no possibility of the move Na5, and hence, if Nb6, then Bb3 is sufficient to preserve the bishop and keep it on its best diagonal. (See 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.c3 Nf6 5.d3 d6 6.O-O O-O 7.Re1 a6 8.a4 — now if Black tries …Na5, White has Ba2 and threatens to fork the knight and bishop with the move b4).
Instead, Stockfish prefers 8.Bb3 (I also like this idea) or even 8.Bf1, among other moves.
8…Qc7
This move comes with a latent threat, as the c4-Bishop is unprotected. If Black can pry open the c-file on his side, the bishop is a huge liability for White.
9.Ba2
This move is the first mistake of the game. It’s not objectively a bad move — it’s the best one on the board. But it took me a whopping nine minutes of the allotted sixty that I was given at the start of the game. I should have trusted my instincts and just played it instantly, but I was looking at other options searching for more in a position that simply did not call for it. I spun my wheels and later it will cost me.
9…b6 10.Nbd2
10.Na6, heading either for c4 or c2, in some lines, wasn’t bad either.
10…Nh5?
This move is just a waste of tempo at best.
11.Nf1!?
In contrast to my 9th move, played too quickly. This is the more solid and Ruy Lopez-ish way. However, I noticed after this move that 11.Nxe5 wins a pawn, because the h5 knight is hanging. For instance: 11…Nxe5 (11…dxe5?! Qxh5) 12.dxe5 Nf4 13.exd6 (consolidating the extra pawn) Qxd6 14.Nc4! Qxd1 15.Rxd1 Ne2+ 16.Kf1 Nxc1 Raxc1.
Another, more sophisticated, idea is to simply play 11.Nc4
11…Ndf6 12.h3
This prepares a later g5 push, but also prevents any annoying Ng4 hops.
13…Nf4?!
This is the natural continuation of Nh5, but doesn’t make sense — it allows me to swap off the one undeveloped and bad piece in the position: the c1 bishop. Besides this, since my last loss, I’m much more inclined to part with the bishop pair, if only for psychological reasons and trying to break my dependence on Janowski Syndrome.
13.Bxf4! exf4
Now I can move on to the next part of my plan: Stick a pawn on e5 and cramp the enemy position.
14.e5!? Nh5
15.exd6
The last and (in hindsight) fatal mistake, again, not because of the move, but the time spent. I used ten minutes (!) deciding between this and 15.e6, which was a bit stronger, but the text move was just fine. This was a choice not worth agonizing over for when I only started with 60 minutes on my clock!
15…Bxd6 16.Ne5
Again, this move is strong because there’s a weak knight on h5.
16…g6
If 16…Bxe5 then 17.Rxe5
17.Nc4?
There was no good reason to move this knight, which was standing perfectly on e5. Allowing the trade on e5 was fine. Instead, I should have played something like 17.Nd2, which improves White’s poorest piece in the position, heading to e4 or c4 next where it controls a lot of center and perhaps backs up the other knight.
17…Bf5 18.Nxd6 Qxd6 19.Re5! Qd7!
19…Rad8? 20.Rxf5 was the point: White wins two pieces for the rook.
20.Qf3 Rae8
This signals Black’s desire to head into an endgame. I was willing to go for this, not because I thought it was winning but because it looked like White was on the better side of the draw and there was plenty of play left.
21.Rae1 Rxe5 22.Rxe5 Re8 23.Qe2
This is what I had calculated.
23…Rxe5?!
This allows White a lot of play. Instead, perhaps 23…Nf6 to redirect the knight toward the center again and avoid forks on g4.
24.Qxe5
The main advantage I felt over 24.dxe5 was that the Queen has a LOT of options on e5 and this is a more practical and psychologically testing move for Black.
24…f3??
This is a move I had calculated, but didn’t believe my opponent would spring for.
25.g4!
Winning a piece. Black’s attack isn’t strong enough because the f1-knight does a great job defending the g3 square.
25…Bxg4 26.hxg4 Qxg4+ 27.Ng3 Nf4
This attack is illusory, but does look rather dangerous at first glance. The pressure is on. My clock is getting low. For a while, I find the right ideas despite all the pressure.
28.Qe8+!
Another 8 minutes spent, but it’s worth the trouble this time. The problem with 28.Kf1 (which I want to play) is not that it shouldn’t be played, but rather not yet, due to 28…Qh3+ 29.Ke1 Nd3+, and goodbye to the White queen. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out the best way to avoid this threat.
28…Kg7 29.Qxf7+ Kh6 30.Qf8+ Kg5 31.Kf1 Nd3
If 31…Qh3, then 32.Ke1 Nd3+ (32…Qh2 Ne4+) 33.Kd2. Black is out of checks and White is about to go on the offensive.
32.Qe7+ Kh6 33.Qe3+ Nf4 Be6 Qg5
35.Qxf3??
This mistake is only really attributable to time pressure. 35.Ne4 wins easily: 35…Qg2+ 36.Ke1 Qg1+ 37.Kd2 and Black has no more checks.
35…Nxe6 36.Qxc6 Qc1+ 37.Kg2 Nf4+ 38.Kf3
In this position, White is still winning, but it’s hard to prove with just seconds on the clock. In the end, after piece trades, I lost an imbalanced knight and pawn endgame where Black had multiple passers on the outside, and I flopped on the central pawn push to promote my own. Definitely, I misplayed the endgame, but had I even an extra ten minutes on the clock I wouldn’t have had to play that endgame. Even five less minutes spent on quiescent positions would have afforded me time to play slowly during the critical parts and not ruin my advantage.
0-1
This loss was, like the prior one, very upsetting. After spending more time in the middlegame, I lost in the endgame after a hugely winning position. After this most recent loss with the White pieces, it was starting to feel like the old curse of the Sacramento Chess Club Team Championship was hitting me again. I was losing all my games as White, even when I achieved completely winning positions.
In the end, my opponent’s cool demeanor and stick-to-itiveness helped him stay in the game and find the right moves to punish my mistakes even though we were both under a lot of time pressure — he played and defended commendably, and in the end he was the better player!
Full game in a gif:
Interesting - as a player of the Black side I’m always happy to get b5 in and gain some space on the queenside and if I was playing white I would look to stop it. Bb3 is nice prophylaxis against this also
You probably meant 19. Re5 and not Re7 I would imagine ☺️
Actually winning a won position is hard !