Nova Daily - 15 February 2025

Hi!

In today's preparation I missed a lot of my tactics. Still got 46-52 in Survival, but I dropped my puzzle rating. The breathing exercises definitely helped.

Today's game went reasonably well. I got a nice attacking position from the get-go, but I missed a tactical shot by my opponent. I took some time to try to refute it and sacrificed a pawn. My opponent reacted with the wrong move which gave me a piece (a knight) for two pawns. It's not usual that the side with less pawns wants to trade queens and rooks, but I did offer those trades because I felt that my kingside was in danger and I didn't see any immediate ways for my opponent to create passed pawns. I suspect that my opponent didn't like the idea of trading when having a piece less, but the alternative was that my pieces began to occupy great squares. At the end I found a rook sacrifice that I thought was stunning. He had to decline it and play on, allowing the trade of a pair of rooks. Unfortunately my opponent disconnected, giving me the game there and then.

The game with my thoughts:

There is a nice sample game showing how white exploited black's weak central position with 11.b4. The game arrived there through a different move-order, but that doesn't matter. https://www.chess.com/games/view/13228834

All in all, a lot to be gained from this game. To summarise:

1. Flexibility is important in the opening. Black's early setup wasn't too challenging and allowed white to build the Botvinnik setup which is very suitable to fight the King's Indian with e7-e5.

2. White should trade on d4 if black has to answer it with exd4. When black then defends the queenside with c7-c5, white has the interesting option to play b2-b4 and subvert the defence of the d4-pawn. This can be seen in the sample game.

3. If black is threatening b7-b5 and there is nothing against a2-a4, white should do so. In the game, 13.a4 was the only move that would have maintained a white advantage at that point.

4. Black's knight sacrifice on e4 was great, but I missed the best reply.

5. Look for simple tactics, even in complex positions. 19.g5! would have made the game rather much easier.

6. As Sielecki likes to say it: Keep it simple. Had black offered the queen trade on e3, the easiest would be to accept it and play Rae1 to round up the lonely soldier.

7. Don't grow emotionally attached to moves based on the time you have invested in them. In the notes to black's 26th move, the sacrifice 27.Nh5+?? is unsound. Had I spent half of my thinking time on that move and then decided that something must have been there, I may well have lost a winning game.