Yeah 7 days
Martin vs the world analysis thread #4
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I'll give it 24 hours for anyone to raise an objection, but if people can't object in that amount of time then really why would they want fast time controls, right?
Glad to have you on board punchbox. In case you haven't followed the game in full, it's 5-check (no side has been checked yet), and the bishops can teleport to any free square on the same colour. Otherwise, standard chess rules apply.
I'm finewith extending the time control. I'd really like to participate more, but I have so many games going on that it's difficult to focus on all of them.
As for the position, I've only looked at the position extremely briefly, but 15. a4 looks good at first glance. There doesn't seem to be any other way to stop black from playing ...b5 (besides 15. Nc3, which makes no sense when we just moved our knight to d1).
And allowing black to play ...b5, e.g. 15. Bc3 b5 16. cxb5 axb5 doesn't look very promising for us. Black is threatening to play ...b4. I mean our bishop wont get trapped on c3, because it can teleport, but still. If we want to keep our bishop on the a1-h8 diagonal then we would have to play 17. b3. It looks ugly for us to allow ...b5.
Another (probably very bad) move that comes to mind to me is 15. Ba7, to "win a tempo" on the rook beore playing Bc3. But first of all bishops are probably worth more than rooks anyway (so black might not need to move his rook) and secondly black can probably just play 15...Bb4 (or 15...Ba5) against 15. Ba7. I don't think that would be good for us, so 15. Ba7 is probably terrible for us.
I've barely looked at 15. Ba7 at all. I might look at it more later if needed.
I still like the idea of swapping our knight and bishop (after 15. a4 of course!) (so that our bishop ends up on c3 and our knight on e3). But if we play Bc2 (followed by Ke2) after that then that makes it easier for black to play ...b5. He would get a piece (probably a rook) on b5 (instead of a pawn) after we play Bc2 (e.g. ...b5 axb5 axb5 cxb5 Rxb5 might happen after both sides play a few moves), but maybe that's not so dangerous for us (allowing ...b5 by not playing 15. a4, on the other hand, is probably dangerous for us, since then black gets a pawn instead of a rook on b5).
But we can think about that on a later move.
I might look at the position in more detail later, if there is anything to look at.
I know where Martin is coming from, because my life these days is hamstrung by world events and the time available to do things is so fleeting: inefficiency with tasks.
Well, at least the days are getting longer now, and I hope to get more involved.
7 days per move; fine with me.
It's difficult to find a long term plan because the position is so congested. a4 seems fine to me, but it pretty much closes the queenside. We'll probably need to play b3 to improve the pawn structure.
At the same time, we do kind of want a few pawns exchanged, it's easier for him to hold off the bishops if the position is blockaded.
Let's say we ignore b5 and just continue with Bc3
15. Bc3 b5 16. cxb5 axb5
I'm not sure about this position. He threatens b4, so probably we need to play b3 or b4. If b3, then b4 closes the queenside and gives us a permanent weakness on a2, and if we play b4 he has c3 to create a passer. We can undermine it with a4, so perhaps we can look at this, but at first glance I'd say this is a position we want to avoid.
At the moment I'm leaning a4, but there might be other ways to deal with the threat of b5, for example a3, so in the line above we don't have a bishop on c3, and it means we can reply to b4 with a4, creating an outside passer. I'm quite happy for him to have a passer on the c-file if we get one on the a-file.
I'm certainly not finished looking at this position.
Anything more for anyone to add? I'm going to take another look at both a3 and a4 later today, I think it's pretty much between these moves for me.
a4 stops him playing b5 for now, but he can prepare it with Ne8 then Nc7. If he really wants to break open the queenside, I don't think we can stop him.
The major benefit of a4, and the reason I'm leaning towards this move, is that we're almost certainly playing b3 too, which supports the weak c4 square.
The downside is that our white squared bishop looks kinda sad with our pawns all on white squares. It might not be a bad idea to trade that off for a knight if it messes his pawn structure up or creates a weakness we can exploit. But that's not a decision we need to make any time soon.
I'm going for a4. We've got little over a day left.
I've been very lazy, so I haven't really looked at the position more; I've only taken a quick glance at the position in the last 30 minutes or so.
But a4 is the move I would play here. If we play a3 then I'm slightly worried the position might open up too much. For example 15. a3 b5 16. cxb5 axb5 17. b4 cxb4 18. axb4 Ra8 and the a- and c-files are open for black.
I think we should try to keep the position relatively closed on the queenside for as long as possible, otherwise our king might get in trouble (since it's in the centre and we can't play 0-0).
I'm not too worried about us getting a bad light squared bishop. That's only temporary anyway (I think). Once we trade a few pawns or pieces (i.e. the position opens up a bit) our bishop can teleport to a better square.
It's unlikely (but possible) that I'll do some last minute analysis later, but I'm definitely leaning towards a4 right now.
I wouldn't play 17. b4 in the line above. I'd be looking at passing the a-pawn, so b3 would seem better. But you're right about our king being somewhat exposed. Our rook on h3 is misplaced, it will still take us a few moves to improve the position of some of our pieces.
I'm going to leave it another 24 hours in case anyone else wants to chime in, but assuming there's nothing more for anyone to add, I'll play a4 around this time tomorrow.
I'm being pretty lazy too, btw. It's largely because these kind of positional games are harder for me to get into. I like open games with lots of tactics, I can spend hours analysing such games, but I find it hard to find winning ideas in deep positional games. I am still enjoying this game, but it's harder to motivate myself to study the position. So I totally understand.
I vote 15. a4.
I also really like open positions that are very tactical. I hate closed positions like this one. Not only do I not like closed positions, but I'm also a lot worse at playing them than open positions. In closed positions I usually make moves a lot quicker than in open positions (in my own games at least), because spending time analyzing only really helps me up to a certain point (which is a pretty short amount of time) in closed positions. Spending extra time analyzing after that almost never helps me make a better move. The first move that comes to mind to me is usually the move I end up playing anyway (which of course doesn't mean it's a good move), so typically I just play the first move that comes to mind pretty quickly (after checking for tactics of coruse!) in closed positions.
If this were a regular daily game I was playing then I would just play 15. a4 pretty quickly without thinking too much about it.
And yes I think 17. b4 would be bad in the line I showed. I kind of just looked at one line and didn't consider alternatives. I didn't look at this earlier, but herhaps after 15. a3 b5 16. cxb5 axb5 17. b3 black can play 17...c4. The threat is for black to trade a knight and a pawn for a bishop and a check with 18....Nd3+, so 17. Nf2 is probably forced. And 17...c4 18. bxc4 Nxc4 must be terrible for us, since it appears he will get a bishop for a knight.
We're in 7 days territory now, but Martin hasn't given us a time warning yet. I wont analyze this positon more now. I don't think it will hurt if you wait another 11-ish hours to make a move Tug. We wont be in 8 days territory by then.
Yeah I just want to be sure that other people don't feel like it's just me and you making the decisions. If someone has something to look at, I'll look at it and reconsider my vote. It's nearly 4pm here in the UK, I'll move before bed, so that's 8 hours or so.
I'm ok with extending the time control to 7 days per move. I actually prefer it that way (over the current time control). I wouldn't be super upset if we just took a draw here either, but I slightly prefer continuing playing with 7 days per move over ending the game now.
I'm not exactly bored with this game, or at least not anymore. Earlier during this game I kind of lost interest in chess in general (not just this game). Playing chess (and this game) felt like a chore and I didn't wanna play anymore. I needed a break from chess, so I didn't start any new daily games and I had 0 daily games for a long time. This game was pretty much the only chess I played (I continued playing this game because I felt like It was expected from me after having participated so much in earlier Martin vs the world games).
But I don't feel that way anymore. I'm fine with playing this game now. I'm not anywhere near as exited for this game as I was for Martin vs the world #2, but it doesn't feel like a chore now. I'm only slightly interested in this game now. Right now this game feels a bit like any other game to me, perhaps slightly more fun. But I certainly don't feel the need to abandon the game.
At times I felt like this game took a bit too much of my time, but that wont be a problem if we extend the time control to 7 days per move. I mean we sort of already have extended the time control unofficially, because both sides seem to take much more than 3 days on each move and don't issue a time warning.
We should keep in mind that if we extend the time control to 7 days per move then this game might take a very long time to finish and there wont be another Martin vs the world anytime soon. If we extend the time control to 7 days per move then I don't think we should use an excessive amount of time, just because we can. We probably wont need anywhere near 7 days on each move. If both sides use all their time then this game will probably end in 2022.
I like the idea of extending the time control to 7 days per move, because then I wont have to spend as much time (per unit of time) on this game and I get a longer break after we've made our move.
I vote extend the time control to 7 days per move.