Your second game's 17. Ng2 comment really cracked me up! I can totally see that line delivered quite dryly by someone like Chandler from Friends...
"I've read that fianchettoing a knight is not usually a good idea." I am still laughing...
Liked the games as well (although I wished your opponents were a little more attentive about threats coming their way).
Your second game's 17. Ng2 comment really cracked me up!
(although I wished your opponents were a little more attentive about threats coming their way).
I believe that line came from Weermantry's book. I'll have to dig that out and re-read it.
RE threats: I totally agree. The second game was my 2nd attempt at the Hippo Defense, and I was hoping for a more protracted battle. In the first game, I will give my opponent the benefit of the doubt and say that spotting at move 11 the two attacks by bishop and rook on f6 that materialize at move 14 isn't completely trivial. 11....g6 is an easy mistake to make.
I first read about the concept of weak colors in Sunil Weermantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, a book I heartily recommend. Here are two games I recently played in which I was able to exploit weak colors around the enemy's castled king. In both cases, the weakness was created by the push of the knight's pawn combined with the elimination of the appropriate bishop.