Saturday, December 11, 2010

SDCC - Gambito #497 - Round 1

Played a short game today (Game in 40, 5 seconds delay). Lost terribly.

6 comments:

  1. Ok, my thoughts:

    2...Nc6 is perfectly fine. You can also consider 2...e4 attacking the White Knight which prematurely developed itself. This is why 2. Nc3 is the most common move for White there.

    7...Qe6 is not necessary. There is really no threat to your Queen as White only has Nh4 to which you can THEN play Qe6, only after White has misplaced his Knight. Instead I think 7...e4 is quite strong for Black forcing the White Knight to a sub-optimal square (either h4 or back to g1 undeveloping!)

    10...Bd7 although focusing on development is not correct. It is not clear how the Bishop wants to be developed yet and you have an opportunity for 10...e4 11. Nd4 Nxd4 12. Bxd4 Rd8 when you develop your Rook with tempo on the White Bishop.

    12...Nd4 seems like a strategical mistake. You must realize that the d4 square is a real weakness and a great outpost for your pieces. You do not want to play the Knight to d4 when White can simply capture it and you are forced to recapture with the pawn losing this great outpost square for you and eliminating this square as a weakness for the opponent. Instead I recommend 12...Qd6 allowing for further development of your Bishop and then follow up with 13...Rfd8 (with your heavy pieces eying support of the d4 square for your Knight to move there eventually at a favorable moment)

    17...Bf6 is a tactical mistake. Now White could have played 18. e5! removing one of your defenders of the d4 pawn to win this pawn. Instead you should continue with development with 17...Rfe8 (Rooks to open files!) and if 18. Bxd4 Rxd4!! 19. Rxd4 Bc5 pinning and winning the Rook!

    18...g5 is a move which really should not be played unless there is some immediate winning idea. Simply weakens your own King position and does not make any direct threats White must worry about. Instead 18...Be7 is necessary to prepare for 19. Bxd4 Rxd4!! 20. Rxd4 Bc5 pinning and winning the Rook again.

    22...f6 the wrong way to support your Bishop. You still have one piece not participating in the game. Develop the last Rook with 22...Rfe8

    23...Qd6 walks into the Bishop pin obviously. You should always think after your opponent makes a move what can they now do that they could not before and this would lead you to anticipate the Bb2-a3 idea as the White Queen is now on a square where it supports this Bishop movement. So instead we should play a simple quiet move here like 23...Qd7 getting out of the pin on the e-file and avoiding the Bb2-a3 trick as well.

    Basically after this it is the point of no return and the game is quickly lost. Only a few tactical mistakes made (23...Qd6 walking into Bishop skewer) but a lot of very minor strategic mistakes which opens the door of opportunity for the other player which is what happened in this case.

    Hope this helps!

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  2. Matt, you are right.. e4 would have been a super awesome move!

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  3. It was pawn moves that did the most damage to your game.

    Pushing the knight pawn in front of your king (g5) was of course seriously weakening.
    Fortunately, white misplayed and failed to open the position. You were worried about losing your queen pawn and over-reacted, abandoning basic principles. At least you don't play dogmatically! Let's say that instead you make the piece move 18...Rfe8 then 19.Bxd4 loses to 19...Rxd4 Rxd4 20.Bc5 with a pin that will win black's rook. It's a trap. Even if white is more cautious and removes his king from the diagonal first, there are other tactics that come into play.

    Pushing the knight pawn on the other side of the board (b5) was immediately fatal. You still had a fighting chance with 26...Qa5

    So you need to be more careful lashing out with pawns. They often appear to be aggressive but really are harmless or worse. In fact, a higher order thinking is to maximize your pieces before making any changes to the structure.

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  4. Yes Bruce, spot on. Check out her next game. In that one 5. c5 and 32. g4 were examples of bad pawn lashing, right?

    Basically I think you are trying to make the point that pawns cannot go backwards once advanced so you have to really consider the repercussions of advancing pawns as they can be the most committal moves in chess as they cannot be reversed.

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  5. yeah, she's got too much pawnpusher in her, better than she was months ago though

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