martin0 vs the world: World analysis thread

Looks like Martin played one of those "nothing moves" that I looked at 2 days ago. 12. Qc2 exd4 13. g4 should win his queen, but we should double check everything first to make sure he doesn't have any tricks. We should also consider all our options (for example other queen moves than 12. Qc2), in case we have an even better move.

I will look at the position some more now.

Qc2 is probably good

Qc2 has my support

I vote 12. Qc2 too. I think I found a slight improvement to my previous line. We can play 12. Qc2 exd4 13. g4 dxc3 14. bxc3 Nxg4 15. Bxd8 Rxd8 16. Qf5 (instead of 16. Qe4, so that we win the rook on d8) Bxc3 17. Qg5+ Bg7 18. Qxd8+ Nf8 19. Qxd6 Bxa1 20. Rxa1.

12. Qc1 looks very strong too, but it's probably slightly worse than 12. Qc2, since after 12. Qc1 exd4 13. g4 dxc3 14. bxc3 Nxg4 15. Bxd8 Rxd8 16. Qf4 Bxc3 we have to make a capturing move (since the d6 pawn is hanging), so we can't play 17. Qg5+.

Yep I vote 14. bxc3 and after the forced 14...Nxg4 I vote 15. Bxd8

yeah

bxc3 Nxg4 Bxd8

nothing else makes sense

I don't think 15...Nc5 is illegal. We don't have any unprotected pawns that are under attack (it doesn't matter that our bishop on d8 is unprotected).

No worries

h3 looks really anti-positional. First move that strikes my fancy is Bg5, maybe play Rac1 soon and make a queen.

I suggested 17. h3 after 15. Bxd8 Bxc3 16. Qxc3 Nc5. In that line black made a desperate bishop sacrifice, hoping white would play 17. Be7 and fall for the tactic 17...Na4 followed by 18...Nxc3. In that position we are up so much material that 17. h3 seemed good enough.

But the current position is slightly different. Martin played 15...Nc5 (without having sacrificed the g7 bishop on c3). I didn't actually consider 15...Nc5 from him. 16. h3 is probably still fine here. But in this line we are not up as much material and our queen does not have access to the g3 square, so after 16. h3 maybe Martin can play 16...Rxd8 17. hxg4 Bxg4. We're still up a lot of material, but Martin has the option of building 2 queens, while we can only build 1, so maybe he has some compensation in that line.

We should maybe consider moving our d8 bishop somewhere (e7, g5 or h4). We could consider something like 16. Be7 Bxc3 (this tactic should not be that dangerous for us as long as we don't take with our queen) 17. Bxf8 Bxa1 18. Bxd6, assuming he doesn't have any tactics I missed.

It's not so obvious what the best move is here. I need to think some more.

I vote 16. Be7. The main idea is to get rid of the d6 pawn and/or the annoying c5 knight. It seems like we end up in a good position no matter what Martin plays. Martin basically has 2 options here (see the diagram below for details).

The first option is for him to play 16...Re8 (the only safe square for the rook), but then we have 17. Bxd6 and the c5 knight can't be defended in a good way and it doesn't have any good squares to move to. Both 17...Nd7 and 17...Ne6 run into pretty deadly tactics starting with 18. Qf5. Martin will have to play 17...Na6 instead in this line, but even then we have a decent tactic starting with 18. Qc1.

The second option is for him to play 16...Bxc3 where we should reply 17. Bxf8. But then he is forced to exchange a lot of pieces and we still get a very good position even if he plays correctly. If he's not careful then he will end up in a lot of trouble here.

I like 16. Be7 more than for example 16. Bg5, mostly because of the tactics that exist for 16. Be7 but also because it's a somewhat forcing move. If we play 16. Bg5 then Martin has more options that we need to consider (against 16. Be7 he pretty much only has 2 options). Also after 16. Bg5 maybe Martin can play 16...Be6 and our c4 pawn might be in trouble.

I like Chess_Pro2

being on our team,

for this match.

Kudos… extreme!

Bob

Vote Be7.

I still can't understand why Martin allowed us to keep our Bishop… but, hey… I'll take it!

I'm also confused. Maybe he was afraid of Qf5?

I vote Be7 as well. Martin dosen't have any major threats for now.

Be7

What I like about Be7 is that it prevents Martin from making a Queen to replace the one he just lost.

I get the feeling Martin will resign soon.  He's about to lose another pawn, then he has to do something about the Knight we'll be attacking.  And we may have a Built Queen soon enough.

Two Queens bearing down on an exposed King… and he has other games in progress… we're becoming a nuisance distraction.  Not to mention that he did bring up the subject of possibly resigning.

The writing is starting to appear on the wall.