Martin vs the world analysis thread #4

Martin has 4 days remaining in his vacation against me. I suggest bumping him when that expires.

I'm having trouble finding a plan for us. The thing that bugs me is that we can't easily play g4, now that his knight is on e5. I completely overlooked this fact. I assumed we would be able to play g4 eventually pretty easily. We can't easily get rid of his knight on e5. If we play f4 then this knight just jumps into g4. We could technically play Nc3-d1-f2-d3-Nxe5 to trade our c3-knight for his e5-knight, but that would be very silly (it would take way too many moves) and I definitely don't recommend it.

Let's say for example we play both Kf2 (I'm not sure what to do with our king) and Rag1 to prepare g4. Then Martin can stop g4 with ...Qc8. But I guess we could play Qd1 against ...Qc8. Maybe something along those lines is worth considering.

We CAN actually play g4, though. This is also a 5-check game.

So distracted by World Events.

(apologize)

I mean for me the plan is to grind to an endgame so we can enjoy having the extra bishop. 

I think maybe a4 is a move to consider here, stopping him breaking through with b5. 

g4 is not a move we can play any time soon, but the threat is keeping his knights busy. There's no hurry for us to break through. we simply need to make progress.

I don't know where we want to have our king. 14. 0-0-0 might still be risky for us, although I can't concretely see what black would play against it. After 14. 0-0-0 b5 black might get some counterplay somehow, but 14...b5 does sacrifice a pawn for black.

We're not in a hurry to castle and I think our king would probably be safe in the centre (since the position is relatively closed) or on the kingside somewhere.

I think we will have to make a pawn break eventually. The only resonable pawn breaks I can see for us are g4 and technically also b4 (which must be prepared with a3). If we try to play the b4 pawn break then we should defnitiely not play 0-0-0.

But at the same time black might also struggle to find a plan here. Black will probably also have to play a pawn break eventually. The only reasonalbe pawn breaks I see for black are ...b5 and ...e6 (followed by ...exd5). I'm not sure black will be able to play ...f5. In order to play ...f5, he would have to move is f6-knight (e.g. ...Ne8), but that leaves the protection of g4, and I think we will probably be able to just play g4 if he moves his f6-knight. But in some lines it might still be possible for black to play ...f5 (g4 adds another defender to f5, but doesn't actually stop ...f5). E.g. 14. Kf2 Ne8 15. g4 f5.

One slightly annoying move black can play (almost regarldess of what we play) is ...Ba5. This would pin our c3-knight (so that it's no longer protecting e4). This would make it even more difficult for us to play g4 (g4 hxg4 fxg4 Nxe4 would win a pawn for black), unless we have some weird pawn sacrifice with g4 that gives a check somehow.

The main moves I would consider here are 14. Kf2 and 14. a4 (Tug's suggestion), but there might be other good moves I haven't considered.

I'm slightly worried about 14. Kf2 Neg4+ 15. fxg4 Nxg4+. Black sacrifices a knight, but gets a pawn and 2 checks. This is unclear to me.

Also as I kind of mentioned earlier in this post, I'm not sure who's better after 14. Kf2 Ne8 15. g4 f5. E.g. 16. exf5 gxf5 17. gxf5 Rxf5 and black might get some pressure against our f3-pawn.

I can't really see anything wrong with 14. a4. But at the same time I don't think ...b5 is much of a threat, unless we decide to castle queenside. If black prepares to play ...b5 before playing it (so that he can play ...b5 without losing a pawn), then maybe it's a threat.

Also I'm not sure what our continuation would be after 14. a4. Let's say 14. a4 Ba5. Now what do we play?

I've barely looked anything at 14. g4. If we can somehow get a check from playing this move then maybe it's worth playing it. But I don't see how we would get a check.

I don't think Ba5 is a problem for us. Qa5 might be though.

14. a4 Qa5... he threatens Qb4, piling up on c4. There's also a pin on the a-pawn which he can exploit to play b5. 

I think our position is better if our c3 knight and e3 bishop are swapped around, so perhaps Nd1. This also stops Qa5. If he plays Ba5, then Bc3. I'd like to keep the bishop pair, but trading off bishops is ok for us because then he has none.

We might want to get the rook off a1 soon, too.

e2 is probably the best square for our king. It's a white square, and out of range of the knights. The bishop on e2 is misplaced now we've played f3. Probably c2 is the best square for the bishop, though it's not doing much there either. But maybe later it is.

Nd1, Bc3, Ne3, Bc2, Ke2... this is slowly improving our position. What can Martin do in the meantime?

Forget about 14. Kf2 here - it's a terrible move to play (right away at least) because of 14...Neg4+ (or 14...Nfg4+). And our king is safer on e2 than f2 anyway.

I agree with Tug that 14. Nd1 looks good. It's the move I'm leaning towards right now. A knight on e3 would be very good for us. It would support g4 and add another defender to both c4 and f5. If we swap our knight on c3 and our bishop on e3 then that would allow ...Bh6 from black, but I don't think that's really something we should worry about.

If we don't play 14. Nd1 then we need to know how to deal with both 14...Qa5 and 14...Ba5 (which could be annoying). In an ideal world we would not wanna trade our bishop pair, but I'm fine with it here and I don't see a good alternative for us. 14. Nd1 Ba5 15. Bc3 Bxc3 looks ok to me for white.

We might want to move our bishop from e2 so that we can put our king there. The problem is that that bishop can't really go anywhere without us hanging the pawn on c4. I think we need to put our knight on e3 before we can move our e2-bishop.

Yeah I think Nd1 is my choice.

Bh6 doesn't look troublesome for us, as a knight on e3 blocks the diagonal. The bishop won't actually be doing a lot there, so it will likely be a wasted tempo if he plays it.

We've used a lot of time on this move, so I'll just vote now.

I vote Nd1.

Vote Nd1. (but I'm hardly in the loop these days; I trust you guys)

patzer?

patzer do you want me to take over as move maker? It seems like it's just me and chesspro analysing, so if we're in agreement and nobody else is chiming in when 3 days is up, I'm quite happy to just go ahead and make a move. Allowing it to get to 8 days is a bit much. I assume Martin is glad for the break because he's not putting us under pressure, but it's easy to lose interest if the game drags on.

I apologize, but that would probably be for the best.

I'm not paying as much attention as I used to, so sorry about that

Ok no problem. You'll need to post in the game thread please to confirm to Martin.

Cheers.

Does anyone object to extending the time control to 7 days per move? I certainly don't.

Rb8 is blatantly preparing b5. We can play a4 to stop this breakthrough.

I mean this is an opportunity to abandon the game if there's no interest. I personally am happy to play with 7day time controls even if it's just me and chesspro, but with that said I don't want chesspro to feel obliged to continue if he's a bit bored.