Notes:
8. d5 I’m very familiar with the King’s Indian Defense, but I much prefer to smash the Nc6 version with a Bayonet attack over the Nbd7 version. But I know the general idea is the same- play for c4-c5 at all costs and ignore the kingside action.
12…bxc5 I don’t know that this was the best way to retake. Black wants to keep the queenside intact, and he really needs the e6 square for his knight. I’m not sure why he took back this way, but it helps me. Now to continue the assault on c5!
14.Bd2 connects the rooks and thus unpins the White’s a-pawn.
Bd7 Why, man, just why? That doesn’t do anything! Maybe he wants to push his c pawn and trade it off, but there’s no way I’d take it. If he wants to relieve his doubled pawns, he’ll have to give me a protected, sixth-rank passer.
Ra5 I should point out a scary, looking tactic here. 1. …f3! 2. Bxf3 Rxf3! 3. gxf3 Qg5+ 4. Kh1 Bh3, threatening mate next move. This fails for a few reasons. One, the rook on the first rank could’ve slid over to the g file, stopping any mates. Two, my bishop currently covers g5, making the check impossible right now, and three, the king can go to f1 instead, where it can hide on e2. But that’s no guarantee of safety. So I have to monitor that tactic and make sure I leave available at least one way to prevent it.
19…Qe7. Better is …Ne6 where the rook can’t take the c pawn because of Bb7, trapping it.
20…Bxa4 Sweet! Your good bishop (and tactical necessity) for my rim knight? Deal!
f3 Securing the kingside forever. With almost no pieces left, sacrifices on the sticking-out pawn don’t work. My bishops will find activity via the a-file.
Bd3. Note how the two bishops add up to a rook, in that they completely control the open file. I hope he plays Rb2, so I can trap it with Bc3.
Qxe8 Black is now one step closer to a losing endgame. The trade was by no means forced, so I’m not sure if Black was just desperate.
Kf2 I want to play Ba4, controlling the light squares and making use of this terrible piece, but Nd6 hits my base c-pawn, so I have to cover that first. And what’s the only piece not doing anything? The king! So I head to d3.
Bd6 I think after this move, turning his piece into a pawn, Black felt solid. But now I show him the space he left behind and start showing him how badly his pieces are coordinated.
32…Kf7 is necessary. After Re7, I’d hit it with Ba4, forcing a liquidation of pieces into an easily-won, good-bishop-bad-bishop endgame.
Ra8+ I wanted Rc8, but I confess, I missed his follow-up move. It worried me at the time that I’d just thrown away most of my advantage, and truth be told, maybe I had.
Nxg8. OK, let’s pause and take stock. I have two bishops and more space. But his knight can maybe do some damage if it got to the queenside, so I have to stand ready to trade it off if it hops to a light square. My dark bishop is nice where it is, but Black can hold that solidly, so I need more weaknesses. So I can give check from h4, which pushes the king back, and then I can liquidate pawns. Opening the position has to be good for the side with the two bishops, right? So here I go.
exf4. Hehehehe. gxf4 was probably better. Maybe he thought his bishop could see the light of day, but I’m not going to let that happen. I said the the chess book thread that strategy is the root of tactics, and when you have a solid theoretical basis in your position, tactics “just happen”. Well, here’s a prime example. Because he has no space and because I control a lot more squares in his camp, and because his bishop is blocked in my his pawns, I can slowly set up a simple fork with e4-e5 and he just has to watch it coming. So fist, I control e5
41…Nd7 The only way out of this mess, lest I trap the bishop with e4-e5.
e6+ Now I have a light-squared, advance passed pawn and a clear road up the kingside on the light squares.
Be5 Bf6 is tempting here, trading bishops and advancing the king, but then …g4! leaves me unable to stop the pawn from queening and I instantly lose. So I’ll just go slow and remember to never trade bishops with my king beyond the fifth rank.
Bf2. No worries. There’s nothing Black can do to get my bishop off that square. I just have to remember to never leave it while allowing him to control f2 from another diagonal. Otherwise, I’ll have to sac my bishop for the pawn.
Bf2 and not Bxe7, where the Black king doesn’t recapture, but plays e2! instead, queening.
Kf4. Does Black resign here? No. He spends 5 minutes thinking, and then flags. I’m insulted, but happy to have a full point against a higher-rated opponent.
Just a note about the game links for anyone who plays games via chat or email; this came up in a correspondance game for me yesterday. Notice how I can link to Chessic Sense’s triumphant victory over his intractable foe thusly.
Same game (try using the forward ‘>’, backward ‘<’ and end ‘>>’ buttons) but it looks radically different because that last bit of the link [&n=5] displays the game from the fifth move overall.
My computer evaluates it at +1.45 for White, but after 9 moves, it can’t make inroads. I would’ve though White could use the bishops to zugzwang Black somehow. For example, the Black king can’t come through d7-c6-b5 because of the bishop, so it has to go around.
Well Black only has to stop the White King penetrating, so his King doesn’t have to go far.
You’re right that White often tries for zugswang in these types of position, but the Black Knight can hop around…
I just thought that (for example) Knight on f6 and pawn on h6 stop the White King on the K-side and then the knight on b6 stops the King on the Q-side.
The white-squared bishop is not much use…
Well, I’ll be damned. I thought you forgot about this game, but apparently you moved a month ago! I missed that, sorry. So I’m going to take your pawn, ignore your poisoned a-pawn (17…Qxa4? 18. Ra1!) and castle. Then I’ll reorganize my pieces to attack your center pawns. I’m not sure what action will occur on the f file yet, but that’s clearly where my (our) play is.
Move #34 is the 34th move overall. It is move 17 by Black which is a castle.
I think you used ‘zero’ - ‘zero’ for your move rather than ‘Capital O’ - ‘Capital O’ which is what Apronus is expecting. (i.e. 0-0 rather than O-O)
See
for a really irritating result of this issue.
ETA: Just to clarify, Apronus basically ignores the castle and considers Rf5 to be the 34th move which is illegal because it doesn’t see a move for black which means White has moved twice.
As Chessic Sense said, the f-file has become the centre of attention for the moment.
There’s also an important question that often comes up in games - where should you put your rooks?
I’ve chosen to leave my a-pawn undefended and double rooks on the f-file.
Chessic Sense has put his rooks on the e+f files. The only downside of this is that the Rook on f8 can’t move at present…
This is a departure from my usual cautious play! :eek:
Once Black regroups his bishop, the pressure is off c4, so I would normally play Bc2 to defend a4 and continue building up.
However I see some exciting attacking possibilities, so I am taking a chance…
There’s a rule in chess- the way to refute a gambit is to accept it. White has sacrificed a pawn to get a single tempo. For some reason, he’s going to use that tempo to give up even more material by sac’ing on f6 and maybe h7. Now maybe glee sees a tactic that I can’t see, but I don’t see how he’s mating me with a single piece. His bishop is, as I planned from move 4, completely out of the game. He’ll take a lot of time to activate it. His remaining rook can’t go to h3 or g4, so there’s no good check with that piece, so I’m not sure how he intends to activate it.
Incidentally, glee criticized my Rae8 move, preferring Rfe8, but had I played that, I’d now be hurting at f7 (Rxf6 gxf6, Qh5! fxg4, Rxf7!, for instance). As it is, my rook is perfectly placed to defend the kingside.
So I make this move with the same comment that chess players have been saying to each other for hundreds of years- “Show me.”
The rule about “refuting gambits by accepting them” is actually a saying (by Steinitz, I think.)
The principle is not a bad one, but you don’t (for example) refute the Queen’s Gambit by accepting it!
Indeed sometimes declining a sacrifice reveals that your opponent had only analysed its acceptance - and now they don’t know how to proceed.
In this game however, accepting the a-pawn leads to exciting play, so Chessic Sense has made the correct decision (unless my attack breaks through )
I also approve of Chessic Sense’s analysis of tempo (usually the justification of a sacrifice), and he’s right about my so-called ‘bishop’ on d3 :smack: (whose sole responsibiliies are to defend a couple of pawns and drop back to f1 if Black checks me along the back-rank later.)
However I do have 4 active pieces attacking the Black King (and the Black Queen has been lured out of position.)
The reason I mistrust the rook on f8 is that the other rook on e8 blocks the first rook. So the Black king cannot use f8 as an escape square.
I apologise for the delay in replying - it’s partly having to do some precise tactical analysis using a board*, but also because I helped out on a residential school trip (which was fun but exhausting.)
My next post will contain details of what I discovered in analysis and how I expect the game to finish.
I need to check it, then type it up, so please bear with me…
*my games here are usually positional, which means I can play blindfold
