Blogs

lebesgue72 vs. meke: Dutch defense: 8/13/14

lebesgue72
| 1

Hi! This is a game i played today. It was a dutch defense game. I gained space on the queenside, and eventually got good squares for my knights. This would not have happened had black played e5 on move 12. Instead of doing that, black moved to open up the a-file for their rook, which is an idea that was new to me. Neither of our light-squared bishops had good homes, until maybe the end. I definitely under-estimated this activation for black's heavy pieces. Black essentially let me have my outposts for the knights, knowing that only the two knights were there(eventually just one knight). Black gladly exchanged their light-square bishop for one of my knights on that outpost. However, black's knights at the end were not contributing very much. I think I should have developed the bishop on move 11 to d3, instead of relocating my queenside knight. If I would play this again, I would probably change something at move 9.  e3 and Qd2 come to mind. Probably e3 is better. Here's the game: