Neutralising the Norm-hunters
GM James Howell
From "Kingpin" No. 26; Reprinted with permission.

Becoming a GM does have its pluses but the major disadvantage
I've found  is the sudden disappearance of 95% of my motivation.
The only thing that really gets me going nowadays is the prospect
of stopping some unfortunate who's going for a norm. This is not a
trait on which I have a monopoly: I can even remember mild-
mannered John Nunn making a similar comment. Make the norm-
hunter a Russian and I start foaming at the mouth, so the reader can
imagine that during the following game I was feeling particularly
rabid: my opponent needed a draw for his second GM norm.

James Howell-Alexander Volzhin
Calcutta 1996 
1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 Nc6 3 Bc4 Nf6 4 Ng5 
My current pet-line. I got sick of players preparing main-line
Spanishes against me knowing that they could confidently predict
my first 20 moves.
4...d5 5 exd5 b5
Never faced this one before but fortunately I'd done some
homework on it.
6 Bf1 h6 7 Nxf7!?
Not highly thought of by theory but the games Ellison G.Flear,
Isle of Man 1994 and Gretarsson Hebden, Kopavogur 1994 had
come to my attention. In both cases the White players had played 7
Nxf7 and easily reached winning positions against their illustrious
opponents.   
7...Kxf7 8 dxc6 Bc5 9 Be2 Ne4! (See Diagram)
Glenn played the uninspiring 9...Qd5 and ended up a pawn down
for nothing. 
10 0-0 Bxf2+!
After 10...Rf8 11 d4 exd4 12 Nd2 Mark's compensation for the
pawn was also nebulous.  
11 Rxf2 Nxf2 12 Qf1!
12 Kxf2 Qd4+ 13 Kf1 Rf8 looks suicidal. My opponent must have
been appalled at the course of the game since this is not the sort of
position you want when desperately needing a draw. 
12...Rf8 13 Qxf2+ Kg8 14 Qe3 Qh4
Clearly there is no time for shilly-shallying   Qe1 mate is Black's
only conceivable threat. White can force an immediate draw with
15 Qg3 Qd4+ 16 Qe3 Qh4 17 Qg3 but I calculated 15 g3 Qh3 16
d3 Bg4 17 Nd2! Rf5 18 Bf1 consolidating and bashed out my
move. In retrospect 15 Bxb5!? (Volzhin) might have been better
but I rejected it as being too cheeky   White is already quite
enough material up without grabbing apparently irrelevant pawns.
15 g3 Qf6!
Whoops! Now Black's bishop is coming to h3. I wasn't going to
tell my opponent in the post-mortem, but I completely missed this
move. Retreats really are much, much harder to see than blatantly
aggressive moves.
16 d3
Fortunately I'm still on the board but in a state of shock. What
made it potentially even more embarrassing was that this (round 9)
was my first outing on the demo. boards and since this was my first
big tournament as a GM I was very keen to live up to my newly
acquired status.
16...Bh3 17 Nd2 
The only sensible way to defend against mate. At least the onus is
on Black to find a way through now. (See Diagram)
17...Rf7?
Seductive but inaccurate. The correct way to triple on the f-file was
demonstrated afterwards by the inimitable Jonathan Speelman:
17...e4!! 18 d4 (White has to keep the position closed) Rad8! and
now 19 c3 Rd5 and 20...Rf5 is very dangerous so White should
probably bale out with 19 b3 Qxd4 20 Qxd4 Rxd4 21 Nf1 Bxf1 22
Be3 leading to a drawn ending.    
18 b3 Qxc6
Because 18...Raf8 is effectively answered by 19 Ba3 Volzhin
decides to grab material while he still can. 
19 Ne4 Qxc2 20 Ba3 a5 21 Bc5
Establishing firm control, or so I thought when I made the move.
However, a few seconds afterwards I suffered my second coronary
of the game when I noticed that 21...Qb2 would wipe out most of
my queenside. It turned out afterwards that my opponent had
avoided this because of 22 Re1 Qxa2 23 g4 picking up the stranded
bishop. I tend to support his view.
21...Be6 22 Qd2 
A third and possibly fatal heart attack seemed less likely with the
queens off. 
22...Qxd2 23 Nxd2 a4 
I spent ages wondering how to win the position after 24 b4 a3   the
a2 pawn is a very serious weakness   when I suddenly realised that
there was a much simpler solution.
24 bxa4 Rxa4 25 a3
Whether it's deserved or not White's position is now completely
winning - Black has no counterplay and can only sit tight whilst his
GM norm goes down the drain.   
25...Rd7 26 Rc1 Bg4 27 Bf1 Bf5 28 Rc3 c6 29 Bb4 Ra6 30 Kf2
Be6 31 Ke3 Bd5 32 Nf3 Rf7 33 Be2 Bxf3 34 Bxf3 Rf6 35 Rc5 1-0
Quite apart from having a depressingly hopeless position, Black
was about to lose on time.   
However, this isn't the end of the story. My opponent took his
defeat with equanimity, behaved like a complete gentleman in the
post-mortem and won crushingly the following day to make a 10-
round GM norm. My round 10 game, on the other hand, was
reported thus in the Indian "Telegraph": "Howell, playing with
intentions of a draw from the beginning, rapidly traded pieces
expecting it to simplify his task, but did not realise that the
concessions he made by ignoring natural development of his forces
would cost him the game. Dolmatov converted his lead in
development into material supremacy, and won without much
difficulty." 
   Needless to say my impressions of the game don't quite tally with
this account (but even so I don't intend to let the readers of
"Kingpin" see it).

The Chess Cafe would like to extend its thanks to "Kingpin" and
James Howell for permission to reprint the above article.
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