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There must've been something better... :(

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Dimitrije_Mandic

It's a sad post-mortem I'll ask you now to help me with... Recently I've realized just how important psychology is when you're playing a human opponent, especially in quicker games! So I played a rapid game, 15min. per side, and got into the ultra-sharp position below:

You might be wondering why I'm posting something I could've just checked with any relatively good engine. The answer is, I also wanted to share my unfortunate sorrow and learn something new about calculation by talking to real chess players. Thanks in advance!
sporefan_10

 

 

If you were white, this is well...

Dimitrije_Mandic

*facepalm* I was OBVIOUSLY Black in this game. Yell Care to help the right side now? Laughing

theunderground702

I'm sorry to disagree with you, but I would rather have the White pieces here.

You have no attack that I can see. Maybe you really do need to be a GM or some crazy computer program to try to make something out of this for Black! OK but in truth, this would require a great amount of patience. Black needs to fix his position while also defending (Rc1 soom becomes very dangerous), and then maybe he can use his material advantage for something other than making the board heavier.

EternalChess

It looks like Kf7 is important for defense purposes but I could be missing something in my 10 second analysis.

ScarredEyes

Dammit, looks like my post from yesterday didn't post. Grrrr...

I would rather have White here. It's amazing what 2 or 3 things in your enemy camp can do. I don't think you have an attack if your opponent is careful. Rather, take advantage of time - make your opponent impatient, as you've got quite a fortress. To be honest, I think White will win - as soon as the pieces are exchanged off.

theunderground702
ScarredEyes wrote:

Dammit, looks like my post from yesterday didn't post. Grrrr...

I would rather have White here. It's amazing what 2 or 3 things in your enemy camp can do. I don't think you have an attack if your opponent is careful. Rather, take advantage of time - make your opponent impatient, as you've got quite a fortress. To be honest, I think White will win - as soon as the pieces are exchanged off.


 

I've found that one of the most difficult habits to learn is that of never assuming your opponent won't find the necessary defense. Trust me guys, you'll never grow as a chess player if you bank on attack plans that require your opponent to miss something. I know because I do it all the time... and look at my Live rating lol. That's what I get! Honestly, I lose more games to this than to blunders of my own.

Kingfisher

ScarredEyes,

25... Qf7??

25... Qf2+ 26. Kh1 Qe1+ 27. Bf1 Qxf1#

Irontiger

For ScarredEyes (and others) : the bishop sacrifice is simply refutated by :

Other moves lose also due to White's lead in material. The attack against White's king is no problem as White controls the light squares.

 

wowiezowie

I'd take white in that position any day, as black looks directionless and has holes everywhere. White has two nice passers to boot!

Dimitrije_Mandic

Yeah, I checked it with Fritz 6 (!), and it says White's about four pawns up in the diagram position. Oh, well, at least it was realistic I'd lose in that position. I didn't really blunder anything afterwards, and I'm glad about that! Smile

transpo

Just an observation, 1....fxg3 seems to be very effective considering that one threat is 2....gxf2+

ScarredEyes

Meh...that's what you get for a half-hour sleepy analysis from someone who plays chess for fun and rarely studies =p

But thank you for your contribution...I'm not sure if I would've found that. But all I'm saying...what I hope was saying, was that Black's hope was in defence, not offense, as there is no suitable attack...And I had to start that analysis from scratch.

@irontiger - on your second diagram, I remember suggesting on the post-that-got-lost 1...Qe7, reasoning that black might be able to hold off the attack...but even then, White's just got too many pawns even if it got into the endgame. But anyway (yes I'm now also sleepy) I saw the moves Bxd5-Rxf6 by White, and so took on Qe7. What was wrong with Qe7?

Secondly, with the variation 2...fxg3 3.Rc8+, why not 3...Nf8?

Irontiger
ScarredEyes wrote

@irontiger - on your second diagram, I remember suggesting on the post-that-got-lost 1...Qe7, reasoning that black might be able to hold off the attack...but even then, White's just got too many pawns even if it got into the endgame. But anyway (yes I'm now also sleepy) I saw the moves Bxd5-Rxf6 by White, and so took on Qe7. What was wrong with Qe7?

Secondly, with the variation 2...fxg3 3.Rc8+, why not 3...Nf8?


Good point, I forgot some lines.

...Qe7 is basically the same as ...Qd7, the Bxd5 pin of a rook ends the game.

3...Nf8 is really resistant due to threats of promotion of the f2 pawn. In fact the only winning line I found goes into the endgame with equal pieces ! All natural moves lose !

 

ScarredEyes

So I think we can agree that Black has pretty much no hope against a computer in this position. And that Black's only chance of anything more than 0 points is to keep his pieces on the board - once they're gone, the passers on the queenside wins the game.

@irontiger Oh and thank you for showing that Nf8 is quite good...I was thinking when reading through the previous posts that I remember that it was a very important defensive move. Wooo...got something right (and I'm not that good at defense). Quite gratifying to see a line leading straight into mate =)