Bulldog Candidate Game (captaintugwash - HorribleTomato)

We'll rematch one way or another.

Oh I though you meant me and tomato rematch, um yeah I need to beat june if I want two games with Martin. That game remains balanced.

To Martin:

I WILL DESTROY YOU IF IT MEANS GETTING REVENGE ON TUGWASH (which will never happen).

lol

gg

Looking forward to play you @captaintugwash

I do as well.

Yeah, good luck in our semi-final game @HorribleTomato. I'll do my best to make sure you do not get a rematch against @captaintugwash in the final.

Yep me too. It won't be easy but finally I get to measure up against you.

No... Tug.

I can still mop the floor with you tho.

Oh yeah, I forgot to come back to this move. ry said it was a really good move, and he was right, it was the key move that won this game. Tomato's reply 10... Be7 was his best move after Qg7, and who finds Qg7? There were some dangerous threats that he had to contend with and this bishop moves successfuly defends against those threats. However, it suited me fine to trade off the dark squared bishops because it left a gaping hole at f6, a really good square for my witch. Only the knight can really challenge it, but only from a white square, and I still had that bishop. My witch was going to be a persistent problem for tomato, even if he doesn't blunder the queen.

If he played 10... Qg7, then it's 11. We4, then probably 11... b6 12. Ba3... looks balanced.

I think 9...f4 was a weird move. With blacks e-pawn missing white is very likely to want to make his e5-pawn transparent and blacks move is just helping that, while also getting rid of the f5 square which could have been used by blacks witch or knight. I would probably have focused on either getting a witch or knight to e6 or trying to get castled as quick as possible. I'm not too worried about the hole on f6 since with my pawn on f5 white has no easy way to get there.

To be frank I would be slight worried about white playing g4 to attack my f5 pawn in an attempt to provoke me into playing f4. I might want to try to rely on lines like g4 Bj5+ h3 Wh4+ to be a reason big enough for white to not play g4.

I can see that he wants to solidify his centre. I think tomato has to see Bc5 and the threats it poses before he can know he doesn't get a tempo on the witch. Without Bc5, ok he gives me a route to f6 but so long as he has his dark bishop then f6 is not a good square for my witch.

I'm not sure I play g4 to provoke f4, not until my king is safe anyway. That g-pawn is an imortant defensive pawn, I don't want to move it while my king is on f1.

What odds on me playing 1. g4?! in our game if I'm white?

I agree it might not be wise for white to play g4 considering how it weakens the king, but I wanted to mention that the idea is there. I think Black moving his pawn from g5 to g4 is helping white more than black, even if there were no direct tactics.

I will be playing white in the challenge game. If you would play white though I would give it 50-50 chance of you playing 1.g4 since you asked the question. If you had not mentioned 1.g4, then the odds would be much lower, but I don't think 1.g4 is too terrible to be honest.

Be7? Was bad for me. The bishop was crucial for my f4 push. Qg7 is undeniably better. 

Medal for players:

captaintugwash is eligible to challenge bulldog World Champion @Martin0! I'll ask in bulldog club when the players agree to play.

Not "excellent".

Can I join the next tournament? Just send me a message about the next bulldog canidate tournament

Qg7 is hard to find because it allows my bishop to control a dangerous diagonal. It's natural to want to challenge such an aggressive bishop. But backing the queen off is better than allowing my witch to occupy f6. Be7 is bad, but only Qg7 is better. Blocking with the pawn would be disasterous, and blocking with the knight is very passive while I remain on the attack. Obviously you have to deal with the threat to the queen, and going through the witch onto the kingside, ok that's an option but it's a useless queen over there. From g7 is eyes up g2, not an immediate threat but at least the queen is doing something.

9... f4 was weird for another reason... f4 might be a good square for your knight to move to in the future (especially after Qg7), but you close that door. It's anti-positional, you give yourself less attacking options to harass a piece that has plenty of squares to retreat to.