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Death of a Chess Position

Death of a Chess Position

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Eventually losing this position was like reliving Death of a Salesman. Act 1 Scene 1 is optimistic and full of hope ... but by the final scenes all of one's dreams are in disarray. It was instructive for me to see how it unfolded, pin pointing in post mortem the illusions I had at the time. Poor choices in which pieces to exchange, wrong moments to seek initiative, bad deployment of pieces to certain tasks.

In the beginning ...








From this decent position reached out of Tarrasch French, I felt White had a slight advantage due to better pawn structure and a Bishop pair.

 

Giving away the Bishop pair too easily  








Here I have to criticise myself for playing Rad1 and giving the Bishop pair away too easily. I believed i would replace the Bishop with a Rook on d4, and eventually control the d-file and play c4.

Better would have been Bc5 to keep the dynamism in the position.

 

Ideal pawn structures for Bishop vs Knight

I was very impressed with my opponent's play after I naively played c4 thinking that I would own the d-file.
After 21. c4, Black replies with the stunning 21. ... c5 and creates the ideal pawn structure for his Knight. My Bishop is now inadvertently "bad" and the Queenside fixed.
 
Activity out of Desperation












Here I lashed out with the impatient 31. b4, likely out of frustration for being so passive. Yet I remove the very thing I need ... counterplay against the Black a-pawn.
More constructive would have been 31. Bb1 followed by Bc2. 
 
Roles of the Pieces











In playing 36. Bd1 I'm thinking far too "generally" and not with the specifics of this concrete position. I miss that 36. ... e4+ condemns by King to the defence of the c-pawn, after which it can never participate in stopping the advancing Black Kingside pawn advance. Necessary was 36. Ke3
 
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