Nova Daily - 21 February 2025

Hi!

Earlier this year I was asked to join a chesscom club called BlogChamps. Initially I thought that it's not really the right fit for me as I'm not your typical blogger. My main purpose when writing my blog is to use it as a public journal to keep track of my journey with my newly chosen opening repertoire. I never intended to flex and showcase my writing skills.

But there are no two ways around it. As can be seen from the sheer amount of text that I enter: I love writing. For me it's a way to structure my otherwise chaotic thoughts. It's a fun experience to create something new that I can then call "my own". New ideas come up virtually all the time, and it's fun to explore these.

I decided to join the club because of the opportunities to get in touch with new ideas, and meet like-minded people on the way. Perhaps I can benefit from an idea that they have, and maybe I have an idea that could help someone else become a better chess-player, writer, or blogger. There's always something precious and hitherto undiscovered to be gained from an experience like this.

The game

One of the recent blogs I read in the BlogChamps group was about the Botvinnik system. As of late I've been gaining quite a lot of experience with this system. And today I got to play a game with it.

My thoughts:

White's first 12 moves played themselves, and I'm confident enough to be able to perform them at any time of day now.

Model games:

I have to be honest with myself: 13.f4 is a bit of an odd-ball. Only a handful of games have ever been played with this move. The idea behind it was to create kingside play, but this never materialised into something real. The move did have its perks: it controlled the e5-square and helped push the e-pawn to that square in a later stage.

There are two other useful moves available to white at this point: 13.Rc1 and 13.Qd2.

In this Titled Tuesday game between NM David Bernat and GM Rameshbabu Vaishali, white played an exceptionally great game following 13.Rc1. He was ultimately flagged, but he was completely winning in the final position. https://www.chess.com/game/live/108833954335 

After 13.Qd2 b5, only one player found the interesting idea to play 14.cxb5 axb5 15.a5!?. What happened in this game is very typical for sub-2000 play: white had a good and promising position but he got overly concerned with his opponent's play and lost the plot.

The analysis:

I severely mistreated the early middlegame in this game because I didn't know of a good plan to proceed. This is a common phenomenon when studying opening theory, and this is why I search for model games to get a better indication of what I should be doing in the middlegame. The game went my way because of a blunder on move 20.

I converted the passed pawns quite well, and during my opponent's 9-minute contemplation I found a lot of interesting resources.

It's almost poetic that the pawn I opened the game with is also the pawn that brought home the victory in the end.

What can I take away from this game:

1. If black plays a combination of Bd7, Qc8, a6, Rb8 and Nb4, they are preparing to play b7-b5 and open up the queenside. White has two interesting setups to play here. The first is 13.Rc1 opposing the queen on the c-file, so that after 13...b5 14.axb5 axb5 15.cxb5 Bxb5 16.Nxb5 Rxb5 the move 17.d4! puts immediate pressure on black's position. The second is 13.Qd2 and answer 13...b5 with 14.cxb5 axb5 15.a5!?, creating a passed pawn on the a-file. This has rarely been tested in practice, but it enjoys the approval of the engine and can lead to an original type of game.
2. In the same vein, if the knight enters d4, it's a good idea to unhinge its support system with 13.b4!, intending after 13...Nxe2 14.Nxe2 cxb4 to lock the queenside with 15.a5 followed by 16.Rb1 and 17.Rxb4.
3. What ties both of the above plans together is that play happens on the queenside and in the centre. There is no need for white to play f2-f4 quickly, as a kingside attack isn't likely to occur.
4. I should pay more attention to my focus, both before and during the game. 15.Nd5? is an unforced error that can be attributed to a combination of several aspects of impatience. You can waste a lot of good efforts by being impatient.
5. The moment at which I stopped calculating 31.d7 was too early. I could have easily spent another minute looking at something after 31...Qb6 to carry the pawn home.