Chess.com 2024, 3rd round, E01 - Here I go again

I'm a casual player at about 2000 daily, and this is my 6th year at the annual daily tournament.

I write this blog in a form of a diary. During the tournament I capture my thought processes and then put them in this blog as they are.

After the games are over, I also add engine analysis for these decisions, and include it in this blog as a running commentary. Those post-game analysis and observations are set in italics and a paragraph apart, like this: 

This is a post-game commentary.

To be 100% clear, all the engine analyses in these comments happen after the game and the entire stage are done.

The goals are:

1. Retrospect on my decisions and continuously improve.
2. Give some pointers to 1500-1800 players.
3. Capture my journey through this tournament for posterity.

Cranking up the time machine again! Today is the 4th of June 2024, and it's been a couple of months since I got past the second round. (You can read all about it here: https://www.chess.com/blog/romank66/chess-com-2024-2nd-round-e01-getting-started ).

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4^th of June

Around 3 PM Pacific, the third round begins:

As always, making a few moves quickly in case a few players are willing to time out. Some people already made their moves against me; I’ll take them a bit slow.

I’m in group 39 out of 50, which means that I fortunately did not get a very highly rated player in my group, but that means little; anyone in the list can be a hidden GM. Of course, I’ll pay extra attention to the top seed and play slowly there just in case.

I’ve chosen VFK_By_Midnight as someone to play fast against; just because his blitz games don’t seem too frightening to me.

As of 5 PM, all players but three made their moves, so no timeouts are expected – at least not at this stage. That’s one reason not to play too fast, as I suspect people here will time out because they give up on the tournament, not because they forget to move.

However, I still need to find someone to play fast against to manage my load. Jaljr looks like a good candidate. He’s moving fast, and is not the first seed. However, looking at his round two games, I see a bit of a problem – he was playing at a very high accuracy. Some of the other games were also played at IM+ level. So, scratch that – he’s not the guy I want to mess about with.

Draqlek looks like a better candidate, though our time zones might be off. At least he wasn’t winning with 99% accuracy. However, he hasn’t moved in our games yet.

Finally, I’m looking at Dumblecore and Eyeblinks. The former especially looks a reasonable target, considering his games in the 2^nd round. I’ll prioritize him. Eyeblinks also seems playable. It’s decided then, both of these players are going to be my early focus.

First diagram of the round:

In the black game, he seems to be doing the right things:

cxd4 seems mandatory here to continue development. Although, on second thought, Nh5 also is worth consideration. I’ll give this a few minutes. On reflection, I don’t like Nh5 – it neglects development, and pays too high a price for the bishop pair advantage. I’d rather move this toward more regular positional directions with cxd4, d5, Bd7, Be7. It means the “anti” in Anti-London did not quite happen, but that’s life.

I was slightly blinded by popularity – apparently, the engine suggests keeping up the tension with d5. The main point is that dxc5, Bxc5, Na4 does not lead to anything exciting for white after Qa5, c3.

At this point, only one player hasn’t made his moves – the French one. I’m willing to bet he’ll join the action too.

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5^th of June

Everyone in my group is active. Not surprising, but if that won’t change, I don’t know how I’ll manage 22 active games against strong opposition. I also found that I played d2-d4 for the first time in eons in one of the games. Not sure why, not sure how; probably my mind was elsewhere. It’s not a blunder by any means, as thousands of people are playing d2-d4 as I speak. It does mean that I conveniently put myself outside of my opening prep.

Also, I need to find another fast player, since Dumblecore is not as active as I hoped. ArtemMaximov is my next choice.

The games with him indeed speed up.  I took the bullet and went into the 4. Ng5 Italian game with a pawn up. Daily games fit better for this kind of situation.

I have three options here:

• Bd7 to put Qxb2 on the agenda.
• Nc6 as the natural way to develop.
• Be7 as another way to keep up with the development.

At first glance, Bd7 is the only move that asks white questions, but Nc6 is the one that has more mileage. On closer reflection, they are likely to transpose. If white goes Rb1, then black plays Nc6 anyway. Typical lines are:

Nc6, Be7, Bd7 are interchangeable, as they are a part of the same development plan. The only standalone deviation is Bd6, which I should have considered, with Bf4 being the stronger piece for white. Overall, I was on the right track.

A few minutes later, I get a surprise. White is sacrificing a pawn:

After eyeballing the position, I can’t see why Qxb2 wouldn’t work:

Alea jacta est – I’ll go Qxb2. By the way, this is the first game out of the opening book.

0-0 is actually the engine’s top line, since white has good activity to compensate for the pawn. The problem was not the castling itself, but white’s upcoming movements.

In the black game, he played an interesting move. Before, everyone played Nxb3 against me here:

There are two paths ahead of me. Forced line with Ba4+ and an interesting imbalance after Be3.

The Ba4+ line:

I think white had decent compensation for the pawn here.

This position is less to my liking. White might have compensation here, but the unsafe king position, the ruined kingside pawns require a different style of play to mine. I’ll go for Ba4+ and slow the game down.

The comp disagrees. The eval after the Be3 option is dead equal, while the eval after Ba4+ is -0.5. It fully agrees with my lines, so the problem is purely in evaluation. White’s pawn structure after Be3 is ruinous, which put me off the entire line, but I suspect the lead in development, extra space and the potential to do the same to black after Bxb6 compensate for it.

Moving to the white ArtemMaximov game:

I’ve been here once before. That game was inconclusive; I’ve got a decent position, but black ended up timing out. I clearly don’t want to allow black to chase my knight away, hence went b2-b3 back then. Is there an improvement, and what is the right setup?

Black has the space advantage, with Rd8, Bb7 coming up. My white-squared bishop has to go to f3, while the knight might go to d2, with bishop on b2. If black lets me play c2-c4, I should definitely do it, but it’s unlikely. Let’s calculate a bit:

The downside with this setup is that if black goes Bf5 and piles up on the c2 pawn, I don’t have good ways of holding on to it. Whether it’s enough to drop the b2-b3 option, I’m not sure, but I certainly want to look for alternatives. In one of the past games, white simply gave the pawn back with c2-c4. Do I feel bad enough about the b2-b3 lines to go to such extremes? The answer is no; there must be some improvements for white in the mainline. b3 it is.

All certified by the engine with the eval at 0.00 at the top lines. While the eval is dead equal, white is the one who has to do the lion share of the thinking. Note for the future: don’t play the 4. Ng5 line against decent players – there’s no glory there.

Weird development in the black Eyeblinks game:

I did not expect anyone at this stage to just gift me a knight like that. What am I missing? He might get a pawn back after Rb1, but I don’t see any compensation otherwise. I now regret not going for the sharper option in the white game…

That is still a mystery. He was playing at a decent, ~1800, level elsewhere, so such a basic blunder is weird. Must be a case of chess blindness.

Another, smaller, surprise in the game below:

He played Bb7, exactly as in my other predecessor game. I wish I have analyzed that one back in the day. Right now, the big dilemma is whether I can go c2-c4. If I can, it solves many problems. Back then, I went Bb2 which invited black to play c5-c4, leading to all kinds of uneasy variations.

Black’s move is an inaccuracy at two levels. Firstly, c4 should’ve been played, as it keeps up the initiative. Secondly, even if the bishop must move, it should be on f5, where it pressures the c2 pawn.

So, let’s start with assessing c2-c4:

I don’t think it works. Way too risky, and most likely leading to a quick loss due to complete discoordination of white pieces, especially with the knight on b2.

Very much correct, big fat agreement from the engine.

Another possible improvement on my previous game is Nd2. In fact, I think it’s quite a good option. It makes c5-c4 risky for both parties:

Black decides to spend his tempo on Bh2+:

Black misplayed the last few moves a bit. The lashing out with Bh2+ simply gave white a tempo. At this point, the initiative is all but gone due to black passing on c4 and playing without a clear plan.

I’ll wait with my response until tomorrow, as enough was spent on chess today. I feel like the worst is behind me, and I’m close to damping black’s initiative. My options are:

1. Be2-f3 to exchange a pair of bishops.
2. c2-c4 to get some space and put the lid on c5-c4 ideas.
3. Bc1-b2 to get the bishop into the game.

Black still has c5-c4 in the 1^st and 3^rd options. He can also go Na5-c6-d4, which can apply in all three variants. Ra8-d8 is also on the agenda, as well as Nf6-d5 which can continue to c3 or f4.

We also have our first result in the group:

White blundered a piece there, so it’s hard to draw conclusions.

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6^th of June

No new results in my group. Looking forward to the first finals game later today, though not optimistic about the outcome. That being said, I wasn’t optimistic in the past couple of rounds, and the Mavs exceeded all expectations there.

In this game, I’ve decided to go for the Burn variation rather than McCutcheon that betrayed me in the last round. This is a game I want to win rather than draw.

In the black Eyeblinks game, he went Rb1 as expected. I’ll let him have his pawn. As long as I stay away from munching on a3, black should be fine:

Going back to the white Artem game, where I have the choice between Bb2, c4 and Bf3.

Bb2 is my leading candidate, assuming black won’t go c5-c4. The reasoning is: immediate c2-c4 loosens up the d-file, with Rad8 ideas putting me on the defensive. Closer inspection of that shows the kind of troubles I might get to:

The engine believes that white is doing just fine in these lines, which again goes to show that a human shouldn’t be entering these variations. Even with black not playing that well, it is unpleasant.

Bf3 leads to a small plus, with an extra pawn that’s going to be challenging to convert:

However, I stand no chance of losing there, and it’s sort of the idea behind the entire line I went for. Eventually, I decide on Bf3. This gives more potential for space and makes c2-c4 a safer option.

Going to the black game, where I have a nice position in French Exchange:

I was here 5 years ago in another game. I could take on e3, but then, the bishop is not going to run away, while c7-c6 is mandatory anyway.

In the white game, black played Nc6, which is an idea I looked at. He obviously wants to go to d4:

The good news is that c5-c4 is firmly off the agenda now, while Nd2-c4 is. I have much less reason to play c2-c4 now, since black is not threatening c5-c4 anymore, while I might want to put the pawn on c3 to control the d4 square. There’s still the question of how I can get more space though, since black just prevented exchanging the bishops and vacating f3 for the queen. So, can I go for a setup with Nc4, pawn on c3, Ba3 and Qc2? Black’s best options to counteract that are with Rad8 to press on the d3 knight, and Ba6 with a similar purpose. Let’s calculate.

Seems to work:

More or less correct. Black’s last move was a strategic mistake which moves the eval from +0.7 to +1.7. He essentially gives up all attempts to fight for compensation for the sacrificed pawn.

In the meantime, VFK scores another win:

Same recipe, black just gave up a piece, so VFK didn’t have to work hard. I’m not getting such presents (yet).

The next move from black is a complete surprise:

I admire the bishop’s bravery, but it looks more like recklessness. My options are:

• Exchange the bishop for two pawns with g3.
• Take the c5 pawn immediately.
• Feast on the pawn only after setting the table with Ba3 or Be3.

Considering how my opponent was losing the other games, I’d rather be cautious than precise, so option (a) looks a bit iffy. That being said, I don’t see the catch there:

1. 1. I still can’t understand why someone would _want_ to play Bh2. Even assuming the bishop is safe there, what’s the purpose of this? There are no threats, no plans behind this.
   2. While I was correct in my assessment of g3, the comp also suggests Bb2 with the reasonable thought that attacking the knight on f6 is a nice addition to black’s gloomy thoughts collection.

Switching to the black game:

He decided to keep the bishop at the cost of tempo. I should think about my ideal setup. My main headache is Nb8 which doesn’t have a good way out. One idea is b7-b5 to get space, then Na6, Be6, Qd7, Nc7. After a bit of think, it looks like Be6 is the best way to start, since otherwise white will interfere with Rf1-e1:

There is a nice learning moment here. I didn’t even consider Na6, as it leads to double pawns, but the engine assures me it’s the best way forward. The departure of white’s bishop is worth the double a-pawns.

Last game for now:

The tempting move here is f7-f6 which opens a host of complications. I’ll analyze this one more later today, considering how committal the move is.

After a close look, I don’t see a reason not to plunge in. Things will get a bit messy, but I still hold on to my extra pawn in all lines.

Again, the right decision – leaving aside some of the calculation inaccuracies. I also had the option of h5 on the previous move. It wasn’t played before for some reason, but it’s worth considering – especially as people often play this gambit against me.

Mavs lost the first finals game. Not entirely surprising, so still hopeful things will turn around.

In the white Artem game, he went down the main line I’ve calculated, and we ended up here:

I have a bishop for two pawns, and good bishop at that. My ideas are:

• Pile up on the weakness on c5 with Be3.
• Push the a-pawn to a4, and either force him to create another weakness on a5 or go with my pawn all the way to a6.

While it’s tempting to put the bishop on b2, he can always go f7-f6 and take the sting out. He can also start pushing the kingside pawns, though it’s going to be double-edged considering his king is hiding behind them. So, is it Be3? Let’s move a few pieces:

The engine just evaluates this at +2.8 and nonchalantly claims all the options to be equivalent.

Now to the Eyeblinks black game where I’m a bishop up:

He is going after the a6 pawn. I’d rather hold on to it, and the natural way to do so is Qc6. I just need to calculate the consequences of Rc7 and Rfb1.

White has more initiative here than I expected, but it looks like I can deal with it:

The eval here is -2.8 (mirror image of the previous game), but unlike there, I do need to be a bit careful. The comp approves of my lines above, including the choice of Qc6.

In the black draqlek game, we went down the queen exchange line. I expected f7+ on the 8^th move, but he passed on that.

Nxf6 seems a no-brainer, otherwise the pawn on h7 goes. Bg6+ could be a bit problematic:

Doesn’t seem like the end of the world. I’ll probably slow this game down a bit.

Another learning moment: the engine coldly suggests that sacrificing the pawn on h7 is compensated by the improved pawn structure after gxf6 and rates both options equally. Positional pawn sacrifice is still not a weapon in my armory: and this is the second time in the tournament where it should’ve been considered.

Going back to the white Artem game (last move for today), he has decided to move the kingside pawns:

Rf5 looks like a decent option here: both to prevent further pawn advances and continue piling up on the c5 weakness. I can also stick to my original plan with a2-a4, ignoring his ambitions in the kingside.

Continued here: https://www.chess.com/blog/RomanKleiner/chess-com-2024-3nd-round-e02-first-win