Game with analysis
Sort:
I hadn't posted a game in a while.
K_Brown wrote:
I hadn't posted a game in a while.
You haven't posted a game you lost in an even longer while.
The unfortunate thing about that game that you lost was that you could've drawn the endgame with 41.a4, which is almost trivial, eliminating the dangerous pawns immediately.
Also, something you should keep in mind - the sacrifice with 13.Bxh7+ is almost always something that white prefers rather than black in these types of positions. I think I would have played it.
Yes. That is what the computer pointed out too. Of course, I had the worse position for basically the whole game. I started making an opening repertoire about a month ago and started studying them with an emphasis on the ideas behind the moves with a pretty positive result. My opponent did give me a chance to equalize at the end and I hadn't given it the proper focus because I tunnel visioned in on the illusion that I was going to win the a-pawn. I've also revamped my thinking structure by reading some good books which help prevent mistakes like this. Unfortunately my tactics prowess and other aspects still need a lot of work and my overall experience level isn't that great either.
One of the books I recently started working through was the Attacking Manual Vol. 1 & 2 and I learned that I had been playing very passive chess. I like that idea though. I played Qd3 hoping that g6 would weaken his position and give me a hook to attack.
Well, with regards to the ending, it's not tunnel vision. You said you were going to win the a-pawn, but that doesn't matter! The point is that the last thing you care about are pawns on the a file, since it's an automatic draw if black has only pawns on the a-file and the wrong color bishop.
One thing I'd recommend working on is repeating very common tactics. Bxh7+ is the kind of thing most players would love to play, and they'd be always looking for that opportunity, just because they've seen great games and attacks from that move all the time.
Very true, good point. That same point about the drawn bishop ending was actually brought up in an annotated game where black was doing worse and had planned to trade off to a draw but ended up getting a chance and went on to win. I've been dedicating most of my time lately just to tactics. I finished a very basic "opening repertoire" a few days ago so I'm back to tactics. I'm thinking a mixture of tactics trainer and GM games might be a good approach, but currently I'm working through a book on tactics and skimming around other chess things. I feel like I've been making some real progress since December.
K_Brown wrote:
One of the books I recently started working through was the Attacking Manual Vol. 1 & 2 and I learned that I had been playing very passive chess. I like that idea though. I played Qd3 hoping that g6 would weaken his position and give me a hook to attack.
Yes you do play passive. In #5 I clicked on 16. ... Nh4
Imagine in that you have a knight on f6 and a queen on h6.
So if you play Nh2, Ng4 ....
Now black might look at 17. Nh2 h5 18. Ng3 because then you can take h5 pawn.
Holes all around the black king, two knights a bishop and a queen all looking dead mean.
By 22. it is all gone and why on earth black did not play 22. ... Nxd4 is beyond me.
This was my analysis and thinking process during the game. What are some flaws and what can I do better next time? Any helpful comments are welcomed.