Nova Daily - 14 March 2025

Hi!

Congrats to all of you mathematicians! It's your favourite day of the year again.

The teacher

When R.J. Lupin took up the post of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts in 1993, he followed in the footsteps of two utterly incompetent predecessors. His direct predecessor Gilderoy Lockhart was a textbook narcissist whose only job was to look good in the eyes of his students and who structured his classes as reading from his own published works and setting the students such eventful and practically useful homework assignments of composing poems about his own achievements. A lot to live up to, that is.

So, rather than having the students read upon magic spells, Lupin decided to go a different course. From the very first lesson on, Lupin focused more on the practical lessons of skills that his students might need in real life. The students were getting first-hand experience with arguably the most important subject of the entire curriculum. It wasn't long before "DADA" became everyone's favourite subject.

Having been a member of the Order of the Phoenix during the first Wizarding War, Lupin has had real-life experience in fighting against the Dark Arts, and he knows his subject very well. He has street credibility and the enthusiasm for his subject, and this makes him one of the most beloved teachers of the subject.

Lupin's qualities as a teacher resonate greatly with the Harry Potter audience, to such a degree that it has been argued that Lupin was in fact the best teacher in the series.

What motivates us to get better at chess isn't just our own talent for the game. There are many things that make us want to become better. Peers can have this influence in several different ways; two of them being competitively (you want to be the best) and cooperatively (they help you get better). But teachers figure prominently in this as well. If you like and admire a teacher, you tend to work harder to impress them and to keep enjoying that teacher's company.

There are many different skills that set great teachers apart. The teacher's level of expertise figures prominently in this, but it's certainly not the only thing. Social skills and personal integrity of the teacher tend to greatly outweigh everything else: for my coach and trainer I'd much rather choose an IM with whom I have a great level of rapport than an antisocial and unmotivated 2700 player who only thinks I'm stupid. I know that that method resonates with some people, but I'm not among them. I can burn myself down to a cinder perfectly well; I don't need anyone else to do the job for me.

The game

My game had a little bit of a history. I was doing my daily Puzzle Battle and played against an opponent who got a few puzzles less than I did. Then, when I wanted to start up my game, I saw that I had a challenge from that very same opponent. Normally I don't accept live challenges because of the way I use my live games, but this challenge was 15+10, the game was rated, and my opponent had a rating within my range.

My thoughts:

As I said at the end of the game, it was pretty enterprising. I had to fight for my life for a very long time, and I feel that I got away because my opponent missed a few more accurate moves to keep his attack rolling.

Model games:

It's great when your authors disagree between themselves, because it allows for some own research. L'Ami isn't such a big fan of the 9...h6 idea, underlining that the move is ugly and weakening. The most-played move in the position, 9...h5, is currently regarded as the main line of this variation. It strikes me as somewhat peculiar that l'Ami finds 9...h5 beautiful yet frowns upon its alternative. If anything, 9...h5 also weakens a lot of kingside squares. To be fair, though, I can see at cursory glance (I haven't studied it that deeply yet) that the move 9...h5 has its merits in halting white's kingside expansions.

Banzea recommended it, which tipped Schandorff off to delve deeper into it. Schandorff came to the conclusion that the move was underrated, stating that it's practically easier to play (which I take to mean "less theoretical"), approximately equally good, and it has surprise value. That said, it does require the right approach, and this is where my play was seriously lacking.

I didn't like 11...Qa5, but I should have played it. Schandorff recommends it, noting that time is of the essence. In the following game between Bezgodov and Moiseenko, black managed to neutralise white's kingside ambitions by developing an early queenside initiative. White felt compelled to trade queens, after which the game took a slower pace. Mutual deficits in the pawn structure and an unequal distribution of minor pieces made the game interesting. After further liquidations, an endgame with rooks and opposite-coloured bishops emerged, in which black managed to obtain and convert the initiative. It must be added that this is a blitz game.

The analysis:

All in all a chaotic game in which both of us missed some crucial points. The bottom line is that my position was significantly worse out of the opening, and white should have won. However, white didn't conduct the attack with enough energy and responded too much to his opponent's moves. This allowed me to take over the initiative and pull the game towards me.

What can I take away from this game?

1. I'm quite interested to play these systems with 9...h6 more often. There is a logic behind it, and it's definitely worth exploring more often. Though truth be told, 9...h5 is also an interesting move to explore. For the time being I'll stick with 9...h6, but I might include 9...h5 in my arsenal as well.
2. Because of the immediate urgency that the position demands from black, the idea 11...a5 was simply too slow. Black has two promising alternatives: 11...Qa5 followed by 12...b5, or 11...f5 12.Bxf5 Nf6, sacrificing a pawn for a very harmonious position in which white's extra pawn is royally compensated for by the clumsy piece placement of Be3 and Ne2 as well as the potential targets on g2 and a2.
3. White's attack should've won, but he missed critical resources. The first is 16.Bc4, which makes grateful use of the absence of a pawn on h7 by introducing g5-g6 or Qg6 with a lot of attacking ideas around black's king. The second was Rg5, which was possible after the trade on f6.
4. I too missed a lot of important moves during the critical stage of the game, most notoriously a4-a3. The stunner 18...c4!! was very difficult to spot, but its effects would've been overwhelming: black's attack goes off like clockwork.