Martin vs the world analysis thread #3

I did start skimming through events but I too quickly got sidetracked. I did notice at least one event where we both have to select a square, I concluded from there that there's greater risk if our move is predictable. But the probability of any given event is small, as chess_pro points out, so not sure how much risk we actually take. When we see what event we rand, we may end up regretting waiting.

Is there benefit to waiting for Martin to blink first? 

Offer draw

I don't think Qa3.5+ is legal, it would have to be Qab3.5+

Qa3.5+ is not a legal move for white here. Bab5+ is never a legal move - bishops can only ever occupy 1 or 4 squares, not 2.

Same with Bab5+, I think that's not legal too. 

Yeah dax gets it.

I think Bg7 is probably fine, but we shouldn't rush. We should first take a day or two to figure out what this means later in the game. Does Martin have any potential weaknesses?

I spectated the last game to use this event. It's quite a good event that opens up a lot of possibilities.

Yes, let's take two days, at least, so move on Wednesday at the earliest.

This Event is extremely complicated, but also fascinating.  I'm going to have to set up a physical board for this, to get used to things.

Whew!

The centre can be an asset for white here, in regular chess black hasn't equalised yet, white still edges it. An early Rh1 takes a lot of the sting out of the position for us. But I think this event might suit us more than Martin, since we're using space to attack while he's using pawn pressure. I wouldn't be all that surprised to see Martin respond immediately with his event. 

I'm happy with Martin's reply to the question, what me and dax were saying is correct. The bishop can't occupy only two squares because it would have to move sideways to do so. The line the piece takes must be straight.

I'd be more worried about a new event than this one if we played c5 now, but yeah I think we should be defaulting to Bg7 followed by 0-0 before thinking about c5. Even if we find a good combo here, it might simply force Martin to start an event rather than win us an advantage. Is it worth the risk when we're castling faster than him anyway?

I didn't notice this post at first, but yeah it's good to have someone watching that has actually seen this before. Gonna take a look at that game now.

I'm glad we didn't get that bounce event.

I vote for Bg7, but for a different reason entirely.

I notice in the other game a bishop was quickly traded for a knight. Let's definitely not do that, unless we're giving up the knight. The bishop is now a much better piece than the knight, and possible better than a rook, since it can have three lines of influence. 

Martin has Bde2.5, which threatens Bh6, trading off our best bishop, leaving him with a faster attack.

h5 seems ok but it's a concession, and it's a tempo that allows him to castle after we do.

In fact h5 doesn't stop him infiltrating. He can still play Bh6, and while we can play Bh8 and offer him the rook, he's not going to take it and instead will have a very powerful piece cramping our position.

Bde2.5 is a problem.

I think bishops are worth a lot more than knights in this event. Even in regular chess bishops are worth slightly more than knights. But now bishops have the extra option of occupying 4 squares at once, which would sometimes be very useful and sometimes it would just block your pieces and make the bishop vulnerable.

You don't have to move the bishop between 4 squares if you don't want to; you can always move it like a normal bishop, so there's no way bishops can be worse in this event than in regular chess. And you can always move a bishop that is standing between 4 squares to a single square (for example one of the 4 squares it's occupying), except when this would be illegal (for example if that would put you in check), although of course this would take a move.

Light squared bishops can become dark squared bishops and vice versa in this event. Knights on the other hand can not occupy several squares at once (they are just regular knights).

I think bishops would become monsters in the endgame. In the early game it's more difficult to find 4 adjacent squares that are unoccupied for your bishop(s) that would not also block your other pieces too much. But when a lot of pieces (especially pawns) come off the board I think the bishops will shine.

If we get a chance to trade knights for bishops we should definitely take it and we should avoid trading bishops for knights, unless we absolutely have to.

And I agree that Martin is (at least slightly) better here because he can play Bf1-de2.5-h6 (since d2, e2, d3 and e3 are all unoccupied). On the other hand we can't put a bishop on de6.5 (at least not right away), since we have a pawn on e7.

I think it's usually better to put bishops in the center (where they can occupy 4 squares at once) in this event rather than fianchettoing them (a fianchettoed bishop can't occupy 4 squares since it's surrounded by pawns). This makes me wonder if we should maybe try to prepare ...e5 somehow (for example with ...Bg7 and ...Nd7) instead of playing ...c5 later. I think playing 6...e5 right away would be bad because after 7. dxe5 Qxd1+ 8. Kxd1 and e.g. 8...Nd7 white can try to hold on to the extra e5-pawn.

I think we should play 6...Bg7 but I'm not sure.