ICCF Game of The Month - March 2000

Osman Kosebay moves on to the World Championship XXIII-3/4 Final

The semifinals of the XXIII World Championship, sponsored by New In Chess and 1st by e-mail, are well underway and the first qualifiers are stepping forward. This month we feature an exciting tactical game by Osman Kosebay of Turkey who "cruised" through his section with a near perfect score of 8.5 out of 9 with one game, a likely win, remaining. 

Osman is 31 years old and lives in Istanbul, Turkey with his wife Figen and their 3 year-old pet, a white boxer named Korsan. He works as the logistics manager for a company that distributes the leading brands of Japanese construction machinery in Turkey.

Osman began his over the board tournament career as early as '83 and was a very active tournament player.  But it was during '90-'91, when he joined the training sessions of his good friend GM Andras Adorjan in Turkey that he made the most progress. He believes that it was these intense sessions that contributed much to his present understanding of chess and later successes. As he recalls "I achieved fourth place in the Championship of Turkey in '91, where I could have shared first place, if I had not blundered a totally winning last round adjournment. I also have two wins

against GM's, one against Ermenkov in '90 and the other against Atalik in '95, this being his only loss against a Turkish player since '88". 

His tournament activity slowed dramatically when he began working for his present company in '92; only vacations were left for tournaments. Then in '97 Osman married Figen and realized that he would have to be content with even less, perhaps 10-15 OTB games per year primarily in team competitions. Giving up OTB tournament chess for a career and family is an easy "sacrifice" to make, especially when there is Correspondence Chess!  Thanks to his friend IM Fatih Atakisi, he turned to correspondence/Email chess and began play in ICCF tournaments in'97.  He is presently competing in four CC and Email tournaments simultaneously, all very successfully.

Osman Kosebay's win over Miklos Traeger of Hungary illustrates his tactical skills. The game follows Kasparov-Gelfand (Linares 1993) a game where Kasparov introduced 13.Nf3 in the Najdorf Sicilian, winning in 25 moves.  Because the game is well known, solid alternatives for black have been found. So Osman deviates with 13.f4 and introduces the novelty 16.f6! which is later supported by the exchange sacrifice19.Qf4.  A complex position is reached that requires precise calculation; a position that any tactician would love!  The White pieces cooperate remarkably and hold the attack together by a thread, each piece playing a key role.  A classic Najdorf Sicilian!  (Annotations are by Osman Kosebay; my comments are noted with VVP)

This article originally appeared at the Official ICCF Website.