Chess.com 2024, 2nd round, E08 - Complications upon complications
28th of March 2024
No changes in the table. I finally play my Nc7 move against Tautzies – the one with the monster of analysis yesterday. The first groups started closing, as the number of players left in the tournament is going down.
Couple of hours later, I also play Nc4 in the black game. Don’t see any immediate holes with yesterday’s lines, and there’s only four hours left.
16-40: Tautzies makes his moves, and they are both as expected: Rac8 in the white game, Qxd4 in the black game. I played planned replies immediately, since I don’t see a reason to prolong.
17-00: Things speed up with Tautzies, he made his next moves quickly as well:
e7-e6 looks like a much better option for me than Be6 that I was analyzing to death the other day. Nb6 is the obvious response here.
I looked briefly at e6 in the previous day’s monstrous calculations, and it’s a decent option – better than my opinion of it. The eval is -0.2 as compared to -0.4 for Bf5 (which I did not evaluate at all).
20-45: With a bit of a break for a gym visit and some bass practice (not in that order), I’m back staring at chess positions. Fabio continues playing out the main lines in both my games with him. I’m a bit more concerned about the white game, with the Sicilian Alapin:
Ideally, I’d like to move away from roads well-traveled, and let him think for himself. However, I can’t find anything better than a3, which is _still_ the mainline. Otherwise, he’ll play Qxb4, and we’ll be staring at a solid 0.00 eval.
Interestingly enough, a3 also gives exactly a 0.00 eval, though a less obvious one for a human than say, Rac1, which indeed invites Qb4.
29th of March 2024
No changes in the tournament table. Vedant is still proudly playing on with a rook and a bishop down; he’s one of those people who go on till mate does us part. Well, I never time out, so best of luck to him on that particular journey.
In the black Tautzies game, he did not play any funky moves, but just went down the obvious pawn exchange:
I evaluate this at about -0.3, since the extra pawn is handily compensated by white’s bishop and overall piece activity. On the other hand, if I get to a B vs. N endgame, I feel the knight will be more useful, since most pawns are bunched up on the kingside. This partially informs my plan.
I was lucky he just took the knight, otherwise white would have a slight advantage. My eval was close; Stockfish gives -0.18.
We’re still in the opening book with Fabio which is impressive considering it’s now two weeks since the tournament began. I’ll play longer this year for that reason alone, which I guess is one way to prolong the fun.
A quick peek at other games shows that Tautzies is well on track to collect his points against players who are not Fabio and myself. On the other hand, Fabio has drawish positions against oioko; I wouldn’t mind the latter biting off half points off more people.
First proper analysis of today is the white Tautzies game, which I feel is the centerpiece of my tournament:
I’m happy with the recent journey of the knight from b5 to b6. The main question right now is whether I take on d7, and of course, my overall plan.
Short-term, Nb6 looks like a much better piece than Bd7, but does it apply long-term? White’s pluses are space advantage, potential control of the semi-open c- and f-files, and pressure on f7.
Black has the unopposed, black-squared bishop, and an eye out on the e3 weakness.
The eval is -0.03, which means that the factors above compensate each other. There’s plenty of imbalances though.
First order of the day is to check if an immediate rush on f7 can yield any results (I suspect not):
Yep, this is a road to oblivion. My leading candidate is something like Rat-c1-c3 to have the rook work the c-file and protect e3. It also has the minor threat of winning a pawn.
The good news is that I just don’t see active ideas for black, outside of trying e5 at some point. So, I can perhaps just squeeze him gradually, which is one of my preferred chess modes. On second thought, he may try a regrouping with Be8, and Nb4, Bc6, Ne5, so I might want to counteract that. Life interferes, so to be continued later.
So, I paused on thinking of how to counteract Black’s untangling with Be8 and Nc6-b4-d5. The more I dive into the position the less happy I am.
Out of necessity, I switch to Rab1 to push for b2-b4, though that’s easily counteracted by Nb4. After a long think (though not as long as two days ago!), I see my only chance to play for a win is by trying to swing Nf3 to e4. Ra3 is the opening move for that plan.
Side point – the engine indeed suggests Rab1 as the best option.
That being said, I still don’t see any large deviation from the 0.00 eval, which means a draw is still the most likely option.
Actually, there is a massive hole in my analysis just now, and it looks like 20…Nxd4. I don’t see a good improvement, so out of despair switch to all kind of crazy variations with d5. Long story short, I converge on Rad1:
Don’t feel convinced about this one, but all the other lines either lead to a draw, or to a minus. Here at least I can hold to my original squeezing idea.
In the black game, Fabio continues riding the opening book for what it’s worth:
Either way, there’s still 19 hrs to go there, so I can postpone until tomorrow.
Also, we finally have another result in the group. Tautzies collects another point:
Nothing to see there. Jonix gave a present, it was collected, so it’s difficult to judge on the strength of play.
30th of March 2024
No changes in the table, but groups keep on closing.
In the white Alapin game, we’re still deep in the opening book:
After a while, I decide to stick with the opening book a bit longer with Rac1. Na4 has too much of a whiff of the Tautzies game with the unopposed black-squared bishop on the other side and the pawn on e3.
That was the right practical decision, though the engine equally suggests g4 and d5. They were too committal though considering my focus on other games.
Speaking of Tautzies, he played something completely unexpected:
What’s the point of h5? Gain space? Give king a better spot at h7? I can’t figure it out, but now e3-e4 just got very tempting; after all, that’s why I went Rad1 in the first place. The idea is to either then go e4-e5, and gain space and a couple of outposts on d6 and f6, or vice versa, go d4-d5, and renew the pressure on f7. However, I notice something I didn’t see yesterday: black can go for a sacrifice at d4:
I still can’t figure that move out. It did not change the eval much, but it’s just not intuitive. Stockfish suggests Be8 as the top choice, which is what I was expecting and calculating.
However, then I see a very nice refutation with 23.Nxe6. Let’s hope against hope that my opponent gets tempted by this line.
A big pat on the back here, as that’s not a trivial line, and it matches comp’s suggestion 100%.
So, with the d4 Gordian knot behind us, let’s take a look at Bh6, which was a move I was concerned about from further away. In this case, Rfe1 should do the job:
Now, black can just play Be8 as he arguably should have done last move. The main question is whether I can and should sacrifice the b2 pawn for the greater good.
And again, correct, Be8 is the top engine option, leading to a -0.5 eval.
This looks too dicey, so I’m better off playing some nice tightening move like Rfe1, or go to the other option of e4-e5 (probably both):
e3-e4 it is!
While I’ve got many of the calculations right, e4 was an inaccuracy; I again got laser focused on just one option and was reluctant to explore alternatives even after seeing Be8. Rfe1 was a better alternative, which mapped to my plans.
10-35: Black went Nb4. Not a move I looked at specifically, but it was certainly on my radar deeper in the calculations.
I see three ideas here: (i) Nc2-e3 is the obvious threat, (ii) occupying d5, if and when white goes e5, (iii) vacating c6 for the bishop. At least I don’t have to worry about sacrifices at d4 anymore.
This was also a slight inaccuracy. I suspect black just didn’t have Be8 on his list. The eval is still in black’s favour: -0.28.
Actually, Nc2-e3 doesn’t look too scary, I can play something like Rf2 and Rd3 to have the rooks dance around the knight. At my disposal, I’ve got aggressive attempts such as d5 and Ng5, squeezing attempts such as e5, and tightening moves such as Bb3.
The aggressive moves didn’t work when the knight was on c6, but I ought to re-check them just in case. They now look better than before, but still not good enough. Black has plenty of ways to go wrong, but if he goes right, I’m not doing that well:
13-25: So, I had an unfortunate event on my way back. Some kind of object struck my car on the left lane of the highway, and then ricocheted into the windshield. The bonnet had more damage, but the windshield is not unscathed either. Of course that was the only time my dashcam didn’t work, so I couldn’t see if it went from the car in front of me or from the road. Body shops are closed today, but I’m not looking forward to their calculations on Monday.
In the game, I converge on Bb3 as the saner option. Hope that my road mishap did not completely take away my chess ability.
Bb3 happens to be the top line, but I almost arrived there by accident, as the calculations were off on multiple levels. I kept worrying about the b2 pawn, which black simply has no time for in such a loaded position. e5 is also a move that shouldn’t be considered. There’s also the same overall problem – my calculations went depth-first, rather than breadth-first.
15-05: Tautzies made another weird move: a6-a5.
I must say, the man (if it’s a man) is full of surprises. Can’t I just go after this pawn with Nc4? I suspect his idea is b7-b5, which indeed looks good for black. I’ll leave it for now then – to be continued in the evening.
This was a slight inaccuracy, as it indeed creates a weakness. I suspect the idea was to prevent me from going a5.
20-00: So, assuming Nc4 is a no-go, and the active options of d5 and Ng5 are as questionable as they were a move ago, I’m back to slower options, such as Rf2 or Rfe1.
Rf2 looks tempting, since it puts Nc4 back on the agenda, and also protects b2. The downside is that if ever black bishop gets to e3, it will be a disaster. However, the more I look at the move, the more I like it. It also makes d5 much more palatable. It’s not easy to see which active moves black has; I can see only Bh6 and Bc6, though I trust my opponent’s ability to come up again with something that I haven’t even considered. I’ll take Bc6 followed by d5 as my main calculation line.
The lines are again mind-boggling, but I view them with positivity. Pretty sure something is missing, but I cannot obsess about this game forever.
The engine throws many moves here with very similar eval: h3, Ng5 etc. My choice is in the same ballpark. Needless to say, the game is very complex. Keeping the tension was the right thing to do.
Just checked my blog from exactly a year ago; I was at 17.5 / 18 points back then, but my remaining games were much further along. Also, the writing was on the wall – I already was highly skeptical of moving from round 2. This time there’s a bit more hope.
Continued here: https://www.chess.com/blog/romank66/chess-com-2024-2nd-round-e09-roads-that-lead-nowhere