Tuesday, December 12, 2006

A typical disgusting game flow

Here you see a typical gameflow. I played the grand prix attack (closed sicilian?) with white.
I was on the upperhand during almost 4 hours, but I just couldn't finish him off. In time trouble I made an error giving the game away.









I'm not bothered by the blunder, but why couldn't I finish him off earlier in such great position? That happens very often. Are they such great defenders at my level or do I just suck?
You can find the game here.
In disgust I hadn't have the energy to analyze it yet.

16 comments:

  1. That's very dispiriting.

    What program did you use to make the graph?

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  2. I use Arena for the graphs (freeware: http://www.playwitharena.com/ ) with chess engine Rybka 2.2 (not freeware)

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  3. I think the problem starts with your move 23 Qg6. After that you exchange your well placed knight on c4 against his passive knight on g8. His Queen gets into play and his pawns are free to move again. Objectively the position is still much better for you but our opponent has counterplay after that. Why give him these chances. Before that black had no real active plan. This is not such a big deal for a computer but it makes a real difference for humans if you play a good position against an opponent with no counterplay at all or a sharper position in witch you are better but your opponent also has his chances.
    And after your opponent gets some counterplay you start worrying only about his threats. Beginning with move 26 Ra3 until move 34 you only play defensive moves. Well a lot of them are forced but some are not. You do not think about your own active plans in this situation although you are still better. The consequence is that his initiative gets more serious. Well in the end you make a mistake. But on the other hand giving your opponent a passed pawn on the 2nd rank is always difficult. So the mistake is quite understandable.

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  4. NN,
    thanks to you I see an important point. I'm so used to keep the queens on the board at all costs, that I totally overlook that when all pieces are traded off, black is lost. That's the flipside of attacking play. 23.f5 and black is in trouble. Another downside of attacking play is that is is very energy intensive. Which makes that it is easy to get tunnel vision in the second half of the game.

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  5. I think the problem starts with your move 23 Qg6. After that you exchange your well placed knight on c4 against his passive knight on g8. His Queen gets into play and his pawns are free to move again. Objectively the position is still much better for you but our opponent has counterplay after that. Why give him these chances. Before that black had no real active plan. This is not such a big deal for a computer but it makes a real difference for humans if you play a good position against an opponent with no counterplay at all or a sharper position in witch you are better but your opponent also has his chances.
    It seems to me that after your opponent gets some counterplay you start worrying only about his threats. Beginning with move 26 Ra3 until move 34 you only play defensive moves. Of course a lot of them are forced but some are not.It seems to me that you do not think about your own active plans in this situation although you are still better. The consequence is that his initiative gets more serious. Well in the end you make a mistake. But on the other hand giving your opponent a passed pawn on the 2nd rank is always difficult. So the mistake is quite understandable.
    So in the reason for your defeat is that you first did not find the right plan but instead gave your opponent counterchances, then you played much too passive and in the end … well we all know that. But if we would not make these kind of mistakes we would all be masters.

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  6. Sorry for posting twice. But you are quite right. f5 was the plan to go for.

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  7. Tempo, did you plan on doing a pawn storm? it certainly looked that way with the a4 pawn push. But I wondered why you didn't pursue it to completion. Did you change your mind? I tend to forget my plans too, so it happens. But in hindsight, pursuing the queen-side play is better I think. You did some queen moves in the king-side but your army was left behind.

    we give the mike to Nimzowitch:

    "How undemocratic for instance, it would be to let one of your officers go on a long walking tour, while the others kicked their heels together at home and bored themselves horribly."

    The queen alone cannot hope to attack the whole of blacks army.

    In summary, I think the proper plan here was to commit to queen-side play. Concentrate the forces there. See who is faster and may the best man win.

    - AND/OR -

    (See position at before move 23 when reading this)

    I think there was no reason to fear the his king-side pawn storm. Your own pawns at the G and H files are in their original place. You can just seal the position. For example, if he play g3 you can play h3. Like that, and now there would be no lines for the rooks to penetrate.. His bishop is bad, and there is no way he could have attacked as there was no open lines and diagonals. But you can open it any time you wanted. So you could also conceivably just waited for his attack to run its own course. Patiently line the rooks on the b or a-file, then after the opponents attack is spent, opened some queen-side lines and then attacked. (I sense he wanted to attack at all cost here. But your own position was sound so if we waited a little bit more, he would have slammed his head on a brick wall)

    --

    just some of my ideas.

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  8. Nezha,
    I planned a pawnstorm indeed. But it is difficult because I want an half open a- or b-file without him having an half open c-file. His c-pawn was standing his own troups in the way and I liked that. I had to prevent a definite closing of the a- and b-file at all costs.

    The queen was not quite alone at the kingside. I dreamed of a queensacrifice forcing promotion.

    I never considered his kingside attack as dangerous. With g4 he actually abandoned that idea.

    I quite underestimated his chances at the queenside after I abandoned it with the queen.

    As said, having the initiative and steering the game costs a lot of intellectual energy. Often I pay the price for that later on.

    You might be right to let your opponent make the plan and save energy. But I always hope that my efforts pay off and that it will become easy to have the initiative by developing stamina and knowledge.

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  9. > is difficult because I want an half open a- or b-file without him having an half open c-file.

    I'm reviewing the position again. But why? The more open lines the better . You can have the queen, two rooks, a knight and the bishop - the whole army all bearing down on the queenside. And the king is there to boot. His knight is undeveloped as such, and the absence of a single piece from the location of battle can mean victory.

    Plus if all the pieces were to be liquidated, then you have the second plan of queening the f-pawn. His king is very far away and it would be very difficult to stop that.

    - my idea -

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  10. Nezha,
    What would be the right moment to play b4, according to you?

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  11. hmm, first i think the rook manuever 17. Ra3, 18.Rb3 is not yet needed. I would have put the rooks in the a and b file. then played b4 immediately. The continuation i'm thinking is 1.b4, cxb4 2. Bxb4 Rxb4 then Rab1 to double the rooks on the b-file (the simplest continuation - of course im sure there are other lines you thought of).

    Then after that, put the knight on d6 to threaten/control squares such as b7. He wouldnt even be able to double on the c-file that easily cause of the knight also controls c8.

    All the pieces, both yours and his will be tied to the queen-side. But He will have some problems because he has no space (somewhat limited to the 7th and 8th rank) and you have greater mobility. A recipe for tactical disaster (his)


    It will be sharp i gather, but interesting.

    This is my general idea.

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  12. > 1.b4, cxb4 2. Bxb4 Rxb4 then Rab1

    correction
    1.b4, cxb4 2. Bxb4 Bxb4 3. Rxb4 then 4. Rab1

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  13. Nezha,
    I was hesitant to bring the rook from f1 to b1 because he was ready to open the g-file while I had to make two preparational moves (Rfb1 and b4). I thought Ra3 was the most flexible, since it adds to the defense of the kingside + it could press along the b-file. Another reason to keep a rook on the f-file was the chance that the f-file would open and I could use it to enter the kingside. The moves were just difficult to assess.

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  14. Quite a difficult game. It always hard to loose, but the good thing is you can learn a lot out of it. It seems that you both missed the vulnerability of white's e-pawn. 7Bb5? Nxe5. so Qb6 deserves a question mark. I always like the bishop pair especially if I can open the game. So I don't like to swap a bishop for a knight unless I get something for it.
    What happened to the rule In the opening you try to get your pieces out as quickly as possible.

    Let's look at move eleven (last move h6 -consider position). Black has still 6 developments left on the board. So does white. White is not ahead. Trades did not improve your game. You actually swapped your developed pieces. In return you created a crippled pawn structure, although a real spear if you use it.

    To be honest I don't like your Nd2 move. I know it is easy to critisize afterwards, so my apologies for that. I might have played it too. Reason, again you move the same piece, the only one on the field. Qe2 was a better option. Anyway the position needs a break up. Black has major problems to develop his kingside pieces. White should try to take advantage of that. Use your spear.
    12 f5 and off it goes.

    13. a4 was a nice attempt but hardly has a real punch. i think that the position was rather even.

    I agree with anonymous for move 23. Although before displace your Q to Q-side, you should have considered if you could queen the pawn. 19 ... Qa6 was a real nice pin of your opponent. So Nc4 was a piece that actually needed protection. A Queens function is mobility. One should try to avoid a decrease in mobility of your pieces.

    Let's go back to 18 Rb3Bf8. It was time to reduce the position and free your position. Free willy!Open up the game.


    18.Rb3 Bf8 19.exf6 Nxf6 20.fxg5 Nxe4 21.Bf4+ Ka8 22.Rh3 Line a big plus!


    Question what would you have played on 16Ra3 Qxa4. Would the loss of the pawn be enough compensation?

    I doubt it but then again I am not a chess program. It seems to me that you wrinkled alittle bit right and then a little bit to the left and the when off with your queen to right again etc.

    Black took control over the game when black Q centralizes. The wheel turned, a knight has fallen (due to overextending himself). In the heat of fight he lost control -restrain and Say Carthago will be destroyed.

    Good luck in future games. Play open games, it might be more in your style. Go for the throat. lol

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  15. Montse,
    thx for the analysis. You're right in most cases.

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  16. After all the extensive analysis a few more comments on the opening. I don’t like the move 4 e5. You give away the central control with that move. White should hold the tension I think and do some developing moves. The black move 5... d4 is not a good move. Just for chasing the white knight he gives up the control of the light squares in the centre. And the move 9...Be4 is a bad positional move. Black is already weak on the light squares in the centre and he gives up his light square bishop and strengthens whites control over the light squares after the exchange. If he would get something in exchange that might be ok. But that is just not the case.

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