Central Command TGs

Well I think that mostly black was safe not to castle because the King was protected behind his pawn wall. White had a nice pair of bishops, so black was also right to trade the knight of for the bishop before they could compromise the position. It does look as if white is just winning round the end there. I think that there is a possibility to do some queenside attacking. For me though my 4th move in the Scandinavian is d4, nice classical line.

I couldn't agree more, killthequeen. Because I play also 4. d4 and that was what I expected, I was not familiar with this variation. You saw exactly my point of getting rid of white's pair of bishops. I was sure knightLite would have got even bigger advantage with them (after all it was to be quite an open game). Although 15. Nfxd4 was the biggest mistake of this practise, my intention was that I'd rather play the endgame with two pawns against one bishop than two knights against pair of bishops and probably one pawn behind.

I think the computer analysis knightLite presented, is better than mine (~2000) and they differ a bit. I would like to recommend to check out also the variations analysis offers. There are some very interesting moves there.

No question about it that knightLite would have beaten me easily, but this was for learning.

Here is by the way my computer analysis of the Scandinavian Defense TG of ours:

jimthemagic played his game excellently. Next time I will play 4. d4 as I did not like where Nf3 took me. The MCO line for 4. Nf3 continues...Bh5. (see MCO line below). jimthemagic suprised me by taking the Knight. My Bishop block was ok, I guess, but my Re1 move turned ot to be a complete disaster for me, as it was being indirectly attacked and no way to defend it.

You are right, I went for the Bishop pair as I figured they would be better in the end game, but this game was far from over...

Let's play one of those 1. e4 1....d5 2. exd5 2....Qxd5 3. Nc3 3....Qa5 4. d4 games some day. Your example shows nicely how it may have gone that way. What draws my attention here is the very last move of it: 10. Ra2. I have not seen it played this way against me, but I see a fine point there. It allows white to attack by pawn push b4. If Ra2 is not played before it, which is one of the simpliest mistakes white can make in Scandinavian Defence, then black solves the game already in the opening by hitting Bxb4.

If you don't mind I'll show an example of it. If someone could use a reason for mistakes, I would suggest that you'll learn more of those. It kinda did it to me here. This is the other game between Argentina (charly) and Finland (me) or is it more of a tango, you tell me:

Hey jimthemagic,

Excellent point!! It seems that the push b4 is a common weapon in the Scandinavian Defense as well as that annoying Q/B spear .

Nice draw in your game above. I applaud you for going over your games as you do, it is one of the best ways of learning from your mistakes...and like you point out, you won't let that one pass by again.

Thanks again,

Hey, here is some more of killthequeen v.s. supergamer game. Hope you enjoy it! Comments will be appreciated.

You may find my next move a little distressing Supergamer.

I apologise for my dodgy play, some of it was simply to confuse (it is an unrated game), but as I'm sure that if the board was flipped, some of you would realise what I was trying to accomplish with Bd2. Ne4 was a fantastic move Supergamer, and practically saved the game for you. There is a common tactic called "Greek Gift." It is a combination that attacks and destroys the castled king. Since the game is unrated, I hoped to create an example of this, but you defended well.

Agh. you got me. oh well, I'm enjoying the game quite a bit. What is the "Greek Gift?" I think I would be interested in learning a way to destroy a castled king.

yep. Oh and the last move you did in our continued game you could have forked the queen and rook.

Greek Gift is a deadly Bxh7 sacrifice, it is extremely powerful. What makes it so great is that a specific move order is not needed; it is more of a pattern. It is most definitely "fall-for-able" and even careless GMs have been victim for it. Below is an EXAMPLE.

killthequeen, i didnt take the fork because i saw Ng5. I didnt feel like a queen trade.

Great example of "the Greek Gift". I never heard it called that but I have certainly used and fallen prey to its various tactics.

Here is the entire training game between me and killthequeen. Thanks killthequeen. I had a lot of fun playing this game.

Great game for you supergamer...I was very impressed with awesome Knight pair as outposts. I am sure that killthequeen felt a little closed in with them sitting on his front door.

You played the QGD opening well.

It was an educational and entertaining game as well, in that I learned about the Greek Gift tactic.

Thank you both for sharing this.

I admit, the rook was a blunder, I had 50 games going and was just moving. What I thought was especially good was that you kept your knight on the critical e4 square. I should have resigned earlier, but I thought that as many winning players do, you would get overconfident and possibly concede a back rank mate. You handled yourself very well though. Not again shall I underestimate you, and I intend for a rematch to take place soon!

Here is a Central Command training game, which killthequeen and I are playing. I think the King's Indian Defense is played here 

quite alright by both. So far White has had more of tempo and central control, but as a training game Black is not doing too bad either.

If some of you would be interested in checking out our continuations here is a link to it.

Hi everybody this is from my recent OTB game against my town's top player. The time Control was an hour and a half per person plus 10 second Fischer increment per move. It was a very intense and interesting game, and if anybody thinks that either me or my opponent missed something, please speak up.