I am starting to study the queen's gambit seriously and all of it's variations along with games which I plan to post here. I'm starting with the orthodox defense of the QGD. I've used a game which I believe was in the world championship match between capablanca and Alekhine in 1927. Capa played some innocnet moves that allowed black to get in an exchanging manouver. Then Alekhine showed off his endgame skills here to neutralize capa's d file pressure by advancing his queenside majority. He eventually gets a passed c pawn, but the end position is still dead drawn. It's not the most exciting game, but it shows the thematic ideas for black equalizing well. The next game will show white picking a strategy just a little more challenging.
And here is by far the most complex variation, 4. exd5!, which presents the largest threat of refutation:
I'll let you guys make your own decisions on this opening variation, but I think there may be some potential to it. Due to problems with the board editor, I can only post 1 diagram per-forum post at the moment. Further analysis of this will be continued in different forums.
I have to play the second board for an upcoming chess match for my high school and I was wondering how I should approach the game if I am Black. I know that I can "play for the draw" by nullifying White's chances for attack. I'm quite good at doing this, actually. But I don't know if that is a good plan. As Black, do you prefer to equalize quickly by exchanging pieces as soon as possible (as theory often suggests the defender should), or do you prefer to create imbalances that give you "double-edged" sword?
As I find myself some 400 points in rating higher than I was when the year began, I already begin to feel the pressure to play more "serious" openings. Those openings that give any beginner a chill down the spine, those openings that have been thoroughly analyzed for over 100 years. It seemed to be a daunting task, but I found that some openings developed naturally, despite their complexity. Pretty soon, I found myself inviting the Ruy Lopez as Black. The French Defense finally made sense to me. And I even learned how to handle "drawish" openings like the Queen's Gambit Declined and the Classical Petroff as my endgame improved. I felt like I had finally broken my old habit of playing gimmicky defenses and systems I could follow 5 moves deep without regard to the enemy position (the Pirc comes to mind, not that there's anything particularly faulty with it). Yet, despite all my efforts, I still seem to be unable to build a nice Sicilian Defense. A search through any master's game would show pages of 1. e4 c5. The same cannot be said for the Russian Game, nor even the Ruy Lopez (not to the same extent, though I am aware that is definitely an arguable statement). Now, I can handle myself on a few Sicilians, like the Najdorf with an early e5 and the ever-popular and all-but-refuted Dragon, even the Pterodactyl Variations; however, none of those positions are particularly appealing to me. So, after reading this, I am keen to the fact that it may seem like I am complaining over nothing, maybe even bragging. I apologize for that. Admittedly, I have spent the last 2 paragraphs trying create a façade that is contrary to my real ability. The truth is, I have always loved the Sicilian Scheveningen. It looks so simple, so elegant and symmetrical, so mature. I read through the games of greats like Kasparov and Flohr and dream of using such a sophisticated defense, yet looks can be deceiving, especially in the world of chess. And now comes that dreaded moment of truth. By now it should be obvious what I am about to write next, though I will write nonetheless: I have a god-awful Scheveningen Variation. I never know when to place which knight where and under which circumstances. I fall for center-crippling maneuvers because I forget to put my queen on c7, or because I developed a bishop instead of castling. Of course, no plan can ever occur perfectly in chess if it requires specific moves that don't regard the enemy's pieces. I should know that, but for some reason the Scheveningen has me baffled. I know I'm supposed to be fighting for d5, but when do I make the time to defend the pawns? And what is with all of these minute maneuvers in Kasparov's games? He explains them as best he can, yet they still seem to be just out of the realm of my understanding. Now I can't be the only person here that has trouble with some elusive form of the Sicilian. Well, actually, it's quite possible that I am. Either way, I think we should spend some time analyze a few Sicilians. I'll bring examples from books I have and I'll see if that helps anyone more than it did for me. The Sicilian, in the words (paraphrased words) of Kasparov, is one of the only defenses that offers Black an opportunity for an advantage, rather than simple equality.
Here's a game using the Trajkovic Counterattack of the Ruy Lopez where Black finds an interesting complication.
strangequark Oct 17, 2009
Here's a game I played recently. I had it analyzed by the chess.com engine, but I included my own annotations because I disagree with a lot of the computer's analysis.
Here is a recent top level Petroff game played between Vugar Gashimov and Boris Gelfand. I do not take credit for the annotations. Those come from our friends at chessbase:)
When I first saw this variation, I was a bit surprised, and for obvious reasons, too. The Bayreuth Variation goes as followed: It baffled me that White would retreat the bishop on move 4 only to exchange on move 5. Time-wise, this appeared very wasteful. White moves the Bishop 3 times in order to capture the knight on c6 that had only moved once. The capture could have been done on the previous move, but instead White waits for Black to develop a knight on f6 first. Why does White do this? The answer appears in many games with this opening: Position. In the normal Ruy Lopez Exchange, the Knight on g8 is mostly deployed to e7 and from there to b6. The f6 square is then left open for pf7-f6 to support e5. The Bayreuth Variation leaves Black's position a bit less desirable; not only does Black have the doubled pawns on the c-file that occur in the Exchange Variation, but he also has to deal with his center pawn on e5 being a backwards pawn. Of course, many will not be convinced by simple analysis to use this line. In such cases, master games serve as great examples of these ideas.
I recently got a game analyzed at 2000 strength by the chess.com comp. I thought it was, for the most part, terrible. It never mentioned any of my opponent's inaccuracies, only mine, and there were positions where it suggested different lines claiming to be equal that were, frankly, not equal (as in entire pieces could be won). I doubt I am above 2000 in rating, so my only conclusion is this: the computer obviously isn't analyzing at a strength of 2000. I'd like to post the game here with both my analysis and the computer's. Mine will be prejudicial, of course, because I will want to believe the moves I made were stronger than they actually were. In the end, though, I would like to know if I am wasting my time submitting my games to be analyzed by chess.com.
No, this game does not have brilliant tactical play and no, it doesn't have shocking sacrifices either. In fact, it doesn't have a forced mate at the end (as far as I can tell). Instead, this game has smart positional play from a GM everyone should be familiar with, though I doubt few people are (I only heard about him in passing while reading a Kasparov game analysis, though there are quite a few openings with variations named after him). Yuri Averbakh, a world-class grand master, shows his positional chops off in this game against Deli. His pawns creep up on the enemy White pieces like ivy and take root right a the doorstep of Deli's first ranks. The game ends in resignation after White is herded back into his home turf with hardly more than 9 squares to share between his heavy pieces (both rooks and the queen) and a few pawns that never left their starting squares. Here is Deli-Averbakh, 1962:
The Ruy Lopez (also know as Spanish Game) is one of the most widely-used openings in chess. It is also one of the most complicated. To try to tackle the job of analyzing this opening, I have chosen to begin with a very specific variation rather than expanding on the position after 3. Bb5. This is because I hope to not just analyze Ruy Lopez, but because also plan on demonstrating the effects of such things as the impact of move orders, pawn structures, and positional awareness. It should be noted, of course, that I can't analyze every variation of the Ruy Lopez; that would take too much time and I doubt I am qualified to do so. I want to provide enough analysis for beginner to be comfortable playing it. The variation I will begin with is the Trajkovic Counterattack. The point of this analysis will be to demonstrate the impact of the early fianchetto and an explanation of preferential move orders.
The caro kann is known for solidity and in this game black played well and did what he usually does: he accumulates advantages (that can often be used in an endgame) and takes advantage if white tries to force the issue with a dubious move. White slowly cracks and makes weaknesses while black was always improving his position.
Sure, you could call this analysis for the sake of analysis and you wouldn't be entirely incorrect; however, I feel that analyses that disprove certain ideas, even those ideas that no one in their right mind would ever consider, are just as important as those analyses that prove certain ideas. My simple reason is this: Some people learn best being told what they should do, while others learn best being told what they shouldn't do ("Stay on Sidewalk" vs. "Keep off Grass"). The defense I am analyzing this post is a "failure". It doesn't lose material, but it demonstrates the importance of tempo, development, and space in the opening, all three of which may be hard for a beginner to keep in mind or understand.
For all those reading this, I would first like to say that my inspiration for this variation was ChessTrainor. If it weren't for his god-awful opening choices, I never would have thought of this. I call it Ruy Lopez: Highly Questionable Variation. It goes as follows: Now I have to present an analysis of the opening to prove its merit, or lack thereof.
This is a continuance of another post of mine in which I challenged this group to find some redemption in for the Philidor Defense (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6). While lines these are nothing new, I feel that they are somewhat overlooked. With that being said, let's see how the Hypermodernists Larsen and Nimzovich approached the defense.
ohaighain Sep 27, 2009
Well, I thought I had figured out a way to make the Philidor Defense useful. My idea was to play the following: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3.Nc3 B-e6!?. The only problem is that 3. Nc3 has been played about 190 times, whereas 3. d4 has been played 7,500+ times in the chess.com database. This means that 3.d4 is much more likely to occur. With that being said, I will solely focus on continuations of the defense after 3. d4. This, of course, makes it even harder to find new ideas because I am already limiting myself to one variation. Oh well. I still think there are ideas still left to find in this defense, mainly because it has been abandoned by most of today's masters. I've read quite a few "refutations" of the Sicilian Dragon that have in turn been refuted. What I am trying to say is that once the GMs find an opening unfavorable, the generally abandon it for something that is "safer". My example of this is the King's Indian Atttack, which fell out of favor when a young Gary Kasparov destroyed a fellow GM who employed it as White against the soon-to-be World Champion. For the next 4 years or so (1981-1985/'86 [?]), hardly a single grandmaster dared to play the opening (check the database on this one). Then, in a tournament, the King's Indian Attack drew a game against a master that used the same opening variation as Kasparov had on Black. The innovation, which was an earlier exchange of the e-pawn, brought the King's Indian Attack back into favor with the chess playing world. My goal here is to see if we can do the same thing with the Philidor Defense.
This next variation looks very cramping, and, well, I suppose it can be. However, it is still a very solid variation and it can occur via 1. e4 or 1. d4. Because of its flexibility, I have decided to show it some attention here in our forums.