very nice game. I like 9...d5 because> it avoids many of the dangerous yugoslav kingside attack lines.
your endgame was just brilliant, as well as your tactics.
15...Bd4 was creative.
22...Rd2 was insightful and maintained tension on the 2nd rank.
one question is why were you afraid of 25...Rxb2 26. Qe5 Rd6! I do not believe White could have made any more threats, you merely have increased tensions.
thanks for posting the game, it has helped me, if not convinced me to play the dragon.
this is very good and it was yrey intersteng thanks
Thanks for the kind words cacahosseini and Shuttlechess.
@Shuttlechess: One question is why were you afraid of 25...Rxb2 26. Qe5 Rd6! I do not believe White could have made any more threats, you merely have increased tensions.
I think I really fell in love with the idea of getting in Bxf3. I think I also recall thinking that he did have an additional threat attacking my B with Bc4, but of course now I see that no he doesn't have that, as it would hang mate in 1. But things gets messy -- does he have anything with Qh8? Rb1? But in the end you're probably right Rxb2 was the best move, and Bd5 was dubious as hell.
I'm an *okay* chess player, but I don't think I'm good enough yet to provide some good input.
But great game, for the both of you!
I would've tried Rh4 hoping he'd attack with the pawn and making it possible to attack and make the rook on f1 vacate so the queen can take pawn, maybe, I dunno, I'm not rated higher than these guys so it's possible white would see this.
oops, I forgot, it's move 17
I would've tried Rh4 hoping he'd attack with the pawn and making it possible to attack and make the rook on f1 vacate so the queen can take pawn, maybe, I dunno, I'm not rated higher than these guys so it's possible white would see this.
I agree, Rh4 is interesting and completely changes the flow of the game. I was concerned with holding the open d-file with my rooks (d, not e-file as I keep calling it in my annotations) ... which is sensible -- but I completely ignored the open rank my rook was on -- they say, "patzers ignore the ranks" -- true in my case :(
However, I'm not convinced Rh4 is ok.
If you don't mind, an unsolicited tip -- It's a mistake we all make, myself very much included, but try not to think like this: "hoping he'd attack with the pawn and making it possible to attack and make the rook on f1..." -- the poor moves available (even if natural or attractive) usually aren't important when playing an opponent roughly equal to your ability. You've got to figure: if you can see a move is no good, so can they -- they'll look for better. Our job is always to consider our opponent's best reply... and only then evaluate our move's chances. After 17...Rh4 I think I'd be worried about 18.f4!? and my rook is looking a bit awkward and isolated. But f4 opens up the long light square diagonal... maybe it's no good... the game really starts to be about that diagonal. I'd want to look at it a lot more.
well I got to say that was avery nice game. I made some minor tactical, positional mistake, but overall, I think we both played pretty well. For a moment I really tought I might be able to stole a draw from this game. I also Have to admit that you have found some interesting unique moves at first that forced me to play an almost complete defensive game. But I did really enjoyed to play that game, and as I often heard, you learn a lot more agains a better player even if you loose, than a win against a weaker player. So with some luck I'll have learned something and mybe I won't fall 0-4 against you on our next match;)
Sam
With 90.0.0 iso 9f3, it would have been a dangerous weapon. Playing be2 and f3 is pretty strange. Nimzowitch might of liked the over-protection of g4 . Nice play, but white was horribly passive all game.
Black handled the exchanges in opening perfectly fine. 11Nxd5 was very submissive by white. In similar position with 0.0.0, iso Be2, white tries to make black pay something for d5 with 11Nd4Xc6 bxc6 12. Bd4. Think right that 30...Kf6 not good move 31RXR pxR 32 f4 looks hard to win.
Two move: Think right that 30...Kf6 not good move 31RXR pxR 32 f4 looks hard to win.
I agree. I think my advantage goes *poof* right there. I had actually worked out that me pushing f4 was the correct move, but I left the board for a day, lost track of my analysis and when I returned to the board I moved the King quickly.
13c3 wasn't very sexy, for white. After so few moves can't expect to have much better position when playing black. Not sure the Bd4 move deserves the exclaim really. It is tactically possible but that alone doesn't make it good. Starting a minority attack with b5 is maybe better.
13c3 wasn't very sexy, for white. After so few moves can't expect to have much better position when playing black. Not sure the Bd4 move deserves the exclaim really. It is tactically possible but that alone doesn't make it good. Starting a minority attack with b5 is maybe better.
Well, we can disagree about exclamation point worthy or not, but 15...Bd4 -- I think it's strong. It sets up my whole penetration along the d-file (which I did work out from there)... if I hadn't wimped out and had take Rxb2 I think I could claim it wins a pawn. How would you have played differently for White?
Good game. I think white chose the correct time to resign.
Umm maybe 16Qc1, iso 16 Bxd4, and 18Rf-d1, iso 18Be4, then 18...Ra-d8 19b3.
Umm probably you are right, just creating a different species of punch bag for white here. Probably 15...b5 is good for black too. After his poor opening play white has to just defend, any reasonable plan by black.
I play the sicilian dragon to, d5 is intresting. But I prefer to play an Yugoslavian variation. With d5 you avoid many of them.
I play the sicilian dragon to, d5 is intresting. But I prefer to play an Yugoslavian variation. With d5 you avoid many of them.
I'm a very inexperienced Sicillian player -- ( The Yugoslav variation? Oh yes, of course -- *nods as if he knows what is being talked about and stirs his drink*) It just isn't part of my repertoire... but of course in correspondence chess I'll try anything (*pats database on head; database wags tail*). All my Dragon experience comes from this one tournament, the Dragoneers tournament... I'm doing well so far, but that comes from A) using the database and B) pulling some lucky wins out of a hat when on more than one occassion my opponent has gotten a superior position then promptly lost concentration and blundered.
@twomove
What means your abbreviation: iso ?
Here's an interesting game I just recently finished... Congrats to my opponent for a hard fought game. I've annotated it to give my thoughts rather than giving many concrete variations. I haven't looked at the game with a computer beyond the database I used during the game and one little glimpse at a tablebase at the end. So, all my notes are subject to correction as they may be entirely in error.
There are two phases where I have questions -- A) Did I have better in the middlegame? I penetrated onto White's 7th rank, but didn't manage to win a single pawn -- ... did I miss something. B) Any comments on how I handled the endgame. Either in planning or execution -- I think I performed brilliantly, up to the very end where I perhaps took more risk than I needed to, but I wonder if anyone can find improvements or refutations to my play.
I'm going to go over the game with a computer eventually -- but I'd like the human perspective. *EDIT: of course I went over my annotations with a fine tooth comb proofreading them, but somehow, the instant after I publish, I notice that I call the d-file the e-file throughout my annotations! UGH! Oh well.