Interesting game, thanks for sharing. I also struggle with knowing when play .. f5. Especially after .. h6 it feels quite loosening.
A Lesser Averbakh-gone-KID with a missed win
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aquatabby wrote:
Interesting game, thanks for sharing. I also struggle with knowing when play .. f5. Especially after .. h6 it feels quite loosening.
The problem is here and elsewhere that one should really think twice before playing ...h6. This is one of the lessons I learned from this game: the g5-square is often less of a weakness than it seems in this type of position.
I think that ...f5 can be played rather sooner than later once White has committed the knight to f3, thus ruling out Qh5+ trouble.
Here's another amateur league game of mine. Time control was 2 hrs/40 moves plus 30 min without increment (!), my opponent was rated slightly higher than me.
It doesn't cast a very good light on me, but even the more I think it's worth posting it here because it contains so many characteristic mistakes and misjudgements.
Bottom line: you can easily drop a few tempos in the opening against the so-called Lesser Averbakh (with d4, c4 and e3) unless you know when to lash out with ...f5 and ...Nc5 in a KID. In this particular game, my opponent even gave me lots of second chances to play these moves, and frankly speaking, my over-prophylactic way to play was maybe not even wrong because it lured her into manouevering that weakened her position.
But in the end of course it's very embarrassing to accept a draw in a position where you lead by about 9-10 points as Black just because you get frustrated that your opponent doesn't simply give up. I honestly thought that my advantage was more or less gone in the end and wasn't in the mood for a long endgame.
Enjoy.