Chess.com 2024, 2nd round, E06 - The first draw

24^th of March 2024

8-00: Tautzies converted both games against oioki as expected:

Jonix out of a sudden offered me a pawn:

A sample line looks fine:

Yep, this is the move I missed yesterday, and I also missed out a few of black’s options in the lines above, starting with Qb4+. The eval is still at +1.7.

All of this brings me back to the black oioki game (I still haven’t made a move yesterday). I have a big decision to make – either go down the forced draw line with Nxf5 or fight for a win with a risk of losing with Qd8. In the end I decide for Nxf5, partly because I’m not a risk taker, and most importantly, because Qd8 seems to provide way more chances to lose than to win. This is going to be a very disappointing draw.

Stepped away from the abyss at the last moment. Qd8 would have lost me the game.

Georgeyost is doing this thing where a move is made 10 minutes before running out of time. As a compensation, I got a chance to play the move below, where there are three ways of taking the pawn and each loses in its own unique way (mental note for a top move contender):

Unfortunately, Bxe7 is an even easier win, so no move of the round submission here.

He has timed out a couple of games against oioki though; not that it matters a lot since he’s a piece down in both of my games with him.

Also, the first groups in round 2 started closing, we’re down to 5980 players now. In the black game, oioki predictably went Qe8+. I’ll see my first draw later today for sure.

12-25: In the oioki white game, I’m almost at the happy ending. Playing a B+N with one pawn against three.

There are many ways to win here, but I’d rather hold on to my b2 pawn, and avoid the excitement of giving a mate with B+N.

17-30: Back from Santa Cruz. While I was there, both of the games with oioki played out – the white win, and the disappointing, oh so disappointing, black draw.

First, the white game:

So, not much to complain about here.

It’s a decent game. Black did not make any major mistakes – apart from launching into a dubious gambit in a daily game. My only miss was with 18.Nd5, where I did not see the Ng6-e5 trick. I gradually dealt with black’s initiative in the opening and converted the extra pawn.

The black game:

This is a very high-level game from both sides.

My opponent played well – no doubt about it. I made a couple of inaccuracies, but most importantly did not consider the most common theme in the Tarrasch, the exchange sacrifice on f3. My only chance to win the game was on move 21, where Rxf3 was the way to go. I won a pawn, but then my eval was off – as the pawn was handily compensated; in fact, I had to find a very narrow path to a draw.

Here is the updated table:

Either way, 8 games left. 

Now I have to focus on Tautzies. 

Last white’s move was b2-b4, with the clear intent of b5. There are four predecessor games; in all of them black went Rc8. The only other alternative that comes to mind is d5, but that opens the game up in a position where my opponent has the bishop pair.

This was the correct move, but it begs the question whether Bogo-Indian is my style of opening. I did not particularly enjoy the kind of position we landed on here, though the engine shows this at -0.2 for black.

The other games have forced moves, so for the first time in a while I end up with an empty queue at the end of the day.

25^th of March 2024

No changes in the table, and no moves of note during the night – things are decidedly slowing down. Georgeyost is again doing his thing of delaying moves until the last minute. Might start doing pre-moves against him.

With a cooler head, I gave some thought to my unfortunate draw yesterday. If I played such a draw against a 2200 opponent, I would have been thrilled. In this case, my opponent's rating was much lower, but he did well, so perhaps I should just shrug and move on.

9-35: This time, georgeyost successfully times out, though to be fair, both games were dead lost for him.

The black game:

I only had to find c4; from there the game played itself. Qxb2 was another moment requiring calculation, but that wasn’t too complicated either.

The white game:

Not much to say here, as black did not give much resistance. Stockfish points out that I should have gone 5. h2-h4 and 10. Nf3-g5 as far better alternatives. This is certainly a worrisome sign, as I should be able to spot moves like h4. I suspect this is because rook-file pawn moves are not typically my thing.

The updated table:

I’m back in first place for now, with 6 games left. However, that doesn't matter a lot, as the main showdown will be with fabiop and Tautzies. A quick peek at the latter’s other games shows that it’s only a matter of time before he collects his points from everyone else. Fabio is still in the opening book in most games.

I’m up material in both the Jonix and the Vedant games with a stronger position, so fairly confident in converting those. Considering Fabio will provide plenty of time to stay in the opening book, I’ll give my full attention to Tautzies – especially the black game, where I’m doing a bit better.

Speaking of Jonix game, there are some interesting variations opening up there:

The last move from black was indeed questionable, exactly because of Bb5+.

16-10: Georgeyost continues timing out:

Looking at the Tautzies black game:

All the predecessor games went Ne5, so there’s strong bias there. I struggle to find alternatives, since otherwise my extra d4 pawn just goes, and white ends up with slight advantage due to the bishop pair. e5 just runs into e2-e3.

Going to the white game:

The predecessor games went 0-0 here, which is the natural move. However, I learned the hard way not to rely on those, especially in decisive games. Bh6 and e5 from black need to be analyzed. Also, Bf5 and a6 have been played before.

Bh6 has Rae1 from white, and I don’t see a way for black to get at the e3 pawn.

21-20: Mavs won again – a good game that was tight until the last few minutes. 

Coming back to the white Tautzies game; I’m a bit worried about e5 from black which can lead to complications:

There’s a lot going on here, but white has too much activity and pressure on f7 to be in trouble. The other moves are Na5, Bf5 and a6. The first one is not too worrying: on one hand it helps black relieve some of the f7 pressure, on another Na5 will be on the sidelines.

Out of these, Bf5 looks most logical, and I suspect this is what black will go for. Bottom-line, I don’t see a move better than 0-0, so I’ll go with that and see what tomorrow brings.

Not sure why I didn’t even consider Kf2, which combines development and e3 protection. Perhaps putting the king on the same file as the rook scared me away.

From black’s side, I again made the mistake of looking only at the forcing option, e5, while he had more patient ideas at his disposal. And, as a response to e5, I had Ng5. So, three erroneous assumptions from the get-go. From that point onwards, there are a few more misses.

A few mental notes:

• • • Stop relying on predecessor games, especially by sub-2500 players.
    • Don’t over-pivot on forcing moves in calculations.
    • Don’t go depth first in calculations.

Continued here: https://www.chess.com/blog/romank66/chess-com-2024-2nd-round-e07-deep-thoughts