Oh What a Knight!
Last night, I had the privilege of having my game commented on by IM Kostya Kavutskiy on Chess Dojo's twitch stream as part of Chess Dojo's Ladder Tournament (if you watch the video, you'll notice he is commenting on a couple games along with mine). As a brief background, I had another one of my games commented on but in that game I played horribly so in this particular game, I was hoping to have a better showing.
In our games, there is both the "chess" aspect - e.g. the strategy and tactics underlying the specific positions we play - as well as the "performance" aspect - e.g. playing under pressure, clock management, energy, and mental toughness. In this game I am going to share with you, I made some decisions based on the position as I assessed it at the time, but also made some decisions based on a particular aspect of my opponent's game that didn't have to do with the pieces on the board - his time trouble.
From a strategic perspective, I transformed a potential kingside attack into a positional advantage, using the positional dominance of my - you guessed it - my knight. I reroute my knight between two excellent outposts - d6 and f6 - in order to meet the demands of the position. Using my knight and the activity of my other pieces I held a small, but definite edge throughout the game. There were points where I could have increased my advantage and points where my opponent could have equalized through more active counterplay, but that's where the second aspect of play came in.
My opponent used a lot of his time in the middlegame and towards the final phase of the game, found himself with less than 5 minutes to play while I had over 20. In my annotations, I include the timestamps so you can see where he used most of his time. By keeping the positions complex and avoiding needless simplifications, I was able to keep the position tricky enough that this time pressure eventually led him to mistakes that I was able to exploit.
The following position is where I secured the final winning edge:
I also wanted to note my use of the chess engine which provided some interesting insights. I try to limit my use of the chess engine as although it can provide strong moves, it cannot teach chess. Although the engine can often poke holes in the moves I chose to make, there is the matter of being able to find moves on the board as a human which also need to be considered. I definitely could have improved my play in spots, but I felt there was a certain logic behind my play that has validity despite stronger moves being available. That being said, the engine analysis proved helpful as it pointed out areas where my opponent could have provided more resistance and in a couple places, where I could have accomplished my strategic objectives more efficiently.
I really appreciate IM Kavutskiy's commentary on my game. Although he also missed some of the computer moves as he didn't use an engine during the analysis, the logic and rationale he provides as he analyzed the positions in the game were quite instructive and perhaps of more value than the engine analysis. Fortunately, I can take advantage of both to improve my chess. I have noted Kostya's comments throughout the game.
Lessons from the game:
1. Consider the pieces that remain after exchanges - not just the material that is leaving the board.
2. There is a thin line between aggressive attacking chess and strong positional play. Being able to switch from one to the other seamlessly is a skill worth developing.
3. Avoid passivity...find ways to get active counterplay as soon as the position allows. If you wait too long, it might be too late!
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