Nova Daily - 25 February 2025

Hi!

In a blog that I read earlier today, its author was wondering whether or not playing on weekends differs from playing on a weekday in terms of its influence on results. Or, in a nutshell, he feels that there's a difference.

Some might disregard this question because the person asking it has a rating in the 800 ranges. But I find that to be a short-sighted way to go about things, and I think that this experiment could call for something more interesting.

To be fair, I do have my doubts to what extent the day of the week has any influence on it. I don't feel that I approach or play an OTB game on Monday any differently than I would on a Saturday. There are many other things that could influence your result, as I briefly touched upon in the comments. To name a few:

• Level of preparation
• Physical shape and energy level
• Focus
• Tactical alertness
• The mood that you're in
• Tilt
• Level of loathing for your opponent
• Effectiveness of your routine
• and many, many other things

The outcome of a chess-game is too complex to predict, and it doesn't just have to do with objective playing strength. You could have a bad day, one tactical oversight, and you can ruin an otherwise perfect day. Or you could just be outplayed by a much lower rated opponent.

It's its own topic to what extent a difference in age enters the equation. Some people are absolutely terrified to play against youth players, and they could have a variety of reasons for this. Regardless of anything else, it's a fact that many youth players work incredibly hard on their game and should be taken seriously.

The main reason why we lose games is because we make mistakes on the chess-board. There's a variety of literature on blunders and how to avoid them (for example, Blunders and How to Avoid Them by IM Angus Dunnington), but the most effective way for me is to look at my own games, look at the plethora of mistakes that I made, and thinking of ways to eradicate them from my play. I've identified insufficient understanding of my openings to make up for a large number of  inferior middlegame positions and, subsequently, lost games.

Today's game was exactly such a game.

The game

As can be concluded from the above text, I lost my today's game. I actually felt that I was being outplayed, and although my rating has taken an 8-point hit because of this, I'm welcoming the opportunities to learn from this. I really don't mind that: it toughens up the spirit, and what's more, this gives me the perfect excuse to have more of a close look at the Tartakower system. If I want to be able to master this system I'll have to study this at some point anyway.

My thoughts:

The strange thing is that I know 6.Nf3 to be strategically suboptimal, but I haven't been able to properly exploit this so far. This points to a severe lack of understanding of the positions that emerge from this. I could do two things: switch to things I understand better, or going through the rabbit hole and understand what this whole system is about. Stay within my comfort zone, or expand.

It doesn't take a lot of ingenuity to figure out that I'd choose the red pill any time of day.

Model game:

Schandorff recommends the moves I've played, at least up to the point when my opponent went to play Be2-d3. This is no reason for concern, but truth be told: Nepo has played something like this against Carlsen in the world rapid championships of 2016.

What's clear about Carlsen's way to treat the position is that he doesn't fianchetto his queen's bishop. Nor does he play a quick c6-c5. He's not reluctant to play Ng6-f8 either.

https://www.chess.com/games/view/14049577 

The lesson I can draw from Carlsen's treatment compared to my own is: don't play too many pawn moves in the opening!

The analysis:

So, I didn't know how to handle the middlegame properly. I made several fundamental mistakes such as pushing the queenside pawns too quickly, placing my pieces onto ineffective squares and thoughtlessly playing nonsensical moves. I was steadily and rightfully outplayed because of this.

What can I take away from this game?

1. The knight isn't necessarily placed well on f3. This has to do with the fact that there's not that many moves to advance the knight. Black should play normal developing moves such as Bg4 (if allowed) or Be6 (if white blocks this possibility), Qd7 or Qa5, Ng6 (threatening to move to f4) and Rad8.
2. If white plays h2-h3, Black can always work with latent threats to sacrifice on h3. I included two piece sacrifices in the analysis that I feel have great practical value. It's well worth remembering these.
3. There's no need to push the queenside pawns too quickly. Carlsen demonstrated that it pays to have the opponent make a concession first. 13.c3 from Nepo wasn't bad, but it loosened up the control over the d5-square, which was later occupied by the knight to great effect. This defect in white's pawn structure was then emphasised by trading down to good knight vs bad bishop, when black's king remained safe and the bishop faced constant difficulties communicating with the rest of white's pieces.