Hey all,

Here are three games I finished against a guy who's ~2300 in correspondance, but blitz evens up the ground a bit.

After completely botching a Najdorf Sicilian as white, I collected myself and played the following games.

Only looked at the first game (it's getting late).

I found your comment on move 16 interesting.  Looking at the position after 16.c4 here's what I thought about the minor pieces.  c1 bishop is the best minor piece on the board due to it's future home on b2.  2nd best may be either your knight or bishop depending but your knight seems better for now.  Last is definitely white's b5 bishop and I found it odd you're so eager to trade it.  Especially for your next comment about how his passers are going to kill you :)  Since it's not worth as much I'd try to ignore it as long as possible.

So considering you don't want to trade light square bishops, what does black want?  White has obvious ideas with the long diagonal.  Black wants to keep an eye on the passed a pawn and at least as importantly, to get counter play!!  If things stay as they are white is winning, period.  Black has to generate some activity.  I liked 16...f5 right away.

You made a good case for taking with the c pawn... I'm not sure which I like better (in the game white had 21.Ra6 and after a minor piece trade moves like Rc6 looming)  One reason I like with the a pawn though is because you don't get a passer and looking for black I don't see any active play.  Eliminating your opponents possibility for activity is a great way to achieve a dominating position and just trust your pluses, no matter how small (in this case not small, protected passer and better minor piece) will carry the day eventually.  So in a correspondence game I may try for c-takes like you said, but I thought a-takes was a good practical decision.

Oh man, in that 2nd game you were killing him... your attack disappeared somehow though.

You played g4... not bad I thought, your opponent responded g5... oh, on 2nd though I don't like g4 at all :p

Instead I liked Qh3 threatening a discovery on the queen (Nxd5 for instance) it pretty much forces Qg8 and like you said before you get Nb4 after all and black just looks awful.  After you traded queens black probably heaved a sigh of relief ;)

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Woah, super tenacious 3rd game, nicely played.  Only thing that popped out at me was 30...Qe7 when he can trade and your c pawn is hanging : /  But really good play IMO, I liked it.  Black's positions looks awkward, but at the same time those passers are making it good and where is white's attack?  17...Nh6, great! :)

Ok, so in the 2nd game I stopped looking after the queen trade, and although it's really late now and I'm tired I decide to see how it played out :p

Your evaluation on move 23 was interesting.  One reason I didn't like the queen trade (other than your attack is gone now) is that your knight on a3 may prove hard to get in the game.  Actually it's almost as bad as black's bad french bishop!  (later you played c4 to get it into the game, I liked that.  Right after black missed 24...Bb5 to activate his, oh well :p

So let's take stock at move 23... white has better rooks (but no infiltration or targets yet for them)  h7 is a target and your d3 bishop is better than black's knight.

What does black have?  A protected passed a pawn and a potential target on c3.

Are you really winning overwhelmingly?  It's a bit like the 3rd game I think, black's position may not look so great after 23...Nd8 but everything is holding.  White's problem in game 3 wasn't space or nice looking pieces (flip the board and have a look! :) but that activity is a means to an end, and there was no tangible "end" (his attack on your king just wasn't there).

In game two you have space and nice rooks but... where's your target, where's your infiltration?  Black is ugly but solid.

After 26...Ra7 black went wrong at some point and I like 27.g5 (fixing the target at h7) and maneuvering against it.  You could also try to exploit his disconnected rooks by starting manuevers on the Q-side.  Ok so you missed it wasn't mate, oh well :)

Thanks for commenting! missed f5 in the first game: had i seen it, i would've played that!