Finally Broke 1900!!!

Yes! Finally did it! After more than 3 years of hard work, I broke a very important psychological barrier for me, the 1900 mark on FICS, and with a nice tactical win against a fairly strong opponent, too! As always, there are some key lessons to learn from the game. Let's see the moves and analysis first.

I was white. Make sure you use the MOVE LIST to follow variations and comments, this thing goes pretty deep!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1)OK. The first important thing would be that didn't actually know what was going on in the opening.

In this position, it's all about the queen being very active and bothering black's kingside developement. I didn't really see that, and I made a big deal out of Nxc3 threats. That wasn't necessary, it was nothing.

It's important to see how a well placed queen can make things difficult for castling. 1.Nf3 was what I should have played, and try to keep the pressure.

the second thing about this position is, understanding that black should take back with the pawn after 8.Nxd5?!. It may look a little crazy, giving yourself the isolated pawn, but again, this position isn't about that. it's about the queen being very well placed.

8...cxd5 would allow black to play Nc6 and finally kick the queen out of the beautiful d4 square. Remember, a chess player isn't a chess player unless he can deal with having an isolated queen pawn.

 

2)The second thing to remember is to be careful when you grab free pawns, they may be poisoned!

In this position, black totally overestimated his position and grabbed both of the pawns with 23...Bxb2? 24.Rab1! Bxa3??, allowing me to completely the dominate the position utilizing my rook on the seventh rank. Rooks on the seventh rank are dangerous. And in this position, they are even more lethal because of the paralyzed back rank of black. 23...Ke7! should have been played, to bring the h1 rook into the game.

and after 23...Bxb7 24.Rab1, 24...Bc3! should have been played, it still wouldn't win the pawn, but would nevertheless make white work to gain the pawn back with tricks.

 

 

 

So, that's it for this week. I wonder how long it will take until I hit my next barrier, 2000. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the game and the annotation. You're welcome to leave any comments and feedback. See you next game, it will be my first as a 1900, I must show some real stuff!