and look at the position visually
also- play some moves from white perspective and see why it is evaluated at -7
dont rush
take some time with it
Can anyone explain to me (in beginner terms) how this is so crushing?
Sort:
go into the game and play the recommended engine moves for black from the point of where game stopped (never mind white hung knight on move 18)
and look at the position visually
also- play some moves from white perspective and see why it is evaluated at -7
dont rush
take some time with it
and look at the position visually
also- play some moves from white perspective and see why it is evaluated at -7
dont rush
take some time with it
White's pieces are temporarily shut out and you had the momentum.
Feb 11, 2022
0
#4
Can't tell what time control you're playing, but yeah, you had that won if the game could continue. Your position is solid, all your pieces are pretty well protected. White is cramped, the pieces are falling out of co-ordination, so starting to lack reliable protection. Your opponent had run out of good moves. It's like your black setup is a cliff face, and his white setup is waves smashing against it and dissolving into spray. I bet your opponent hesitated a whole microsecond before accepting that generous draw. Well played! 
Black is 2 pawns up. All other considerations are less important.
You say:"I was just unable to come up with any kind of plan to capitalise on that and move forward."
How about: play the game and see what happens? You are happy to play the next game when it is even material, so why do you have trouble playing 2 pawns up? I don't get it.
"The winning of a pawn among good players of even strength often means the winning of the game." - Capablanca
Here black is 2 pawns up and black also has the bishop's pair and a knight outpost at d3.
The main plan is to clear the path for pawn e5 to queen.
A logical move is ...Nf4 to force a trade of rooks. When up 2 pawns each trade of pieces increases the relative importance of the material advantage.
- Two juicy pawns up.
- White has no play.
Simplest way to win is trading pieces, e.g. by 27...Nf4.
Add to that the fact you kindly declined the gift at move 18: the knight could be safely gobbled- white's attack is fictitious.
But in any case, if you are two juicy pawns for nothing, then you should play on, regardless if you find a plan, or not.
I have only 1400 elo in rapid rating. but I think these comment might help
dybken wrote:
I have only 1400 elo in rapid rating. but I think the comment that I wrote might help
Besides, in d pawn openings, you should not play Nc3 in most cases as you then cannot play either c3 or c4 to either attack or protect the center pawns. And you also try to activate your queen when there are multiple ways that it can be attacked, in a result you waste 3 moves of tempo and black is using these 3 moves to improve his position and try to control the center or activate more pieces.
Thanks for all of these responses guys, it does help out a lot... I'll probably do this more often actually. I can see now that at the time I could have rethought the position differently and also had a different attitude to the game. Whenever I finish games, I always try and take some of the most instructive moments and make flash cards (using Anki) as a reminder. I can now do that with a bit more understanding.
Just to clarify again, I was playing as black in the game.
I think I would maybe play g5 first. If white goes Qh5 the queen is lost after Nf4. After the only move Qg3 black can play Nf4 and threaten Ne2+. Or f5 and threaten f4 which also picks up the queen, unless white sacs a knight on g5 which just loses material. Or maybe I would play Nf4 first after all, it looks safe and solid.
The tactical advantage of an immediate Nf4 has already been stated. If there wasn't the strong threat to the Queen (such as if the King was on f1 instead of g1) then there is still the straightforward idea of pushing the pawns with 27 ... f5 and 28 ... e4 to drive the Knights back and further support your d3 Knight (28 Neg5 and you have the option of simply taking the Knight or, if you are overly worried about the attack, first playing 28 ... e4 and then taking the Knight).
With the Knights driven away you can play ... Kh7 and then use the newly opened dark square diagonal to invade the White position.
PsychoPanda13 wrote:
Hi guys,
So I played this game over on Lichess, I was black.
Throughout the game, I felt like I had the upper hand but was just not able to find a solid way forward and eventually offered a draw on move 27. On analysis, it seems like I was absolutely crushing... but for the life of me I still don't fully understand why. I felt like white's pieces were on terrible squares and stifled any chance of attack... but I was just unable to come up with any kind of plan to capitalise on that and move forward. Would anyone be able to explain (in beginner terms) what I should pay attention to here and acknowledge to build a plan to capitalise on my advantage?
Any help appreciated. And again, I am fairly new to the game - so go easy on me!
https://www.chess.com/a/2PoxoaGYn28eLn
(I was black)
If you're confused about a game you can check it on the analysis feature. Chess.com and Lichess both have it. Basic tactical ideas and other justifications for the evaluation become clear with future moves. You can even test lines you feared and see the replies. It can answer a lot of initial questions.
But looking at your board, the most obvious part showing you're winning, even without knowing the eval, is that you have a 2 pawn lead. So even if you had no positional edge with that material, and you both played roughly even Chess and traded down, 2 pawns is a winning endgame advantage. There's no way that's worth a draw by itself for you. Not being sure what to do isn't a good reason to draw, even if all you do is avoid hanging pieces for free you're winning. It's them that needs to find punishing moves to make it out of this, not you. So at the bare minimum you should hopefully have rated yourself at least close to 2 points better than them for the material alone.
For me, the first thing that stood out to me was the rooks opposing each other, in part because the only piece shielding them is presently under quite a bit of pressure. Moving your knight offers a rook trade, and if they refused it their rook has to run away and leave your rook on that file. The b2 and f4 squares are the only places for your knight to go to offer it. B2's edge is giving two attacks on the rook, which is unneeded, the rook's attack is enough, and the knight is undefended and easy to attack there. So f4 is the best square to run to. It turns out this also makes life harder for their queen, which justifies a lot of your eval, but even without noticing that the move stands out.
You also have that randomly undefended pawn on g6, going to g5 makes it defended and attacks the queen, so the attack comes with tempo. So both g5 and Nf4 are moves that better protect the pieces that were moved and launch must-respond attacks at the same time. Both stand out as solid options in their own rights, but their queen's position and weakness to both moves, especially combined, is where much of the remaining eval can easily be justified.
So below I give a few lines that show how you get to the queen, every single move justified by an attack that very turn, so even if you don't see the end result each of these attacks are fairly intuitive plays. You wouldn't have a single move that looks meaningless but actually sets up some genius trap later to keep track of, you just keep attacking until suddenly the queen is trapped.
Computer likes f5 as their third best move, and the easy knight attack is nice, it just feels weird to push pawns in front of a king unless it's needed or obviously improves your position, which is why I didn't look for it at first. Since it's such an easy attack on the knight it's worth a look when calculating anyways though. G6 was more obvious because the pawn is better defended after playing it. The knight move only requires extra thought to decide where to put it, but the actual idea of moving the knight out of the line of fire for the discovered attack is fairly intuitive to consider. F5 does improve your position as it happens, you just have to plan ahead a bit more than the other moves to justify it. I can justify the other 3 moves even just looking 1 move ahead, so my immediate vision spotted them faster.
Feb 13, 2022
0
#14
PsychoPanda13 wrote:
Hi guys,
So I played this game over on Lichess, I was black.
Throughout the game, I felt like I had the upper hand but was just not able to find a solid way forward and eventually offered a draw on move 27. On analysis, it seems like I was absolutely crushing... but for the life of me I still don't fully understand why. I felt like white's pieces were on terrible squares and stifled any chance of attack... but I was just unable to come up with any kind of plan to capitalise on that and move forward. Would anyone be able to explain (in beginner terms) what I should pay attention to here and acknowledge to build a plan to capitalise on my advantage?
Any help appreciated. And again, I am fairly new to the game - so go easy on me!
https://www.chess.com/a/2PoxoaGYn28eLn
(I was black)
1. You are two pawns up, which should be enough to win by itself.
2. You have more space, which is a big advantage.
3. White's pieces don't have squares, which is a consequence of 2.
4. You have a beautiful N outpost on d3 which, if white tries to trade, would give you a dangerously advanced passed pawn
5. You have the bishop pair, which is almost always an advantage over any other combination of minor pieces. As pieces get traded off, this bishop pair would likely become more important than it is in the final position of the game.
In general, I would look for tactics in this position based on two ideas: first, the white queen is boxed in and short of squares...is there a way to win it? That's something I would look at; second, white's pieces have very few squares, which could present tactics. If I couldn't find any tactics based on those two ideas, I would happily trade everything and win with the two-pawns advantage that you have.
Hope that helps.
Hi guys,
So I played this game over on Lichess, I was black.
Throughout the game, I felt like I had the upper hand but was just not able to find a solid way forward and eventually offered a draw on move 27. On analysis, it seems like I was absolutely crushing... but for the life of me I still don't fully understand why. I felt like white's pieces were on terrible squares and stifled any chance of attack... but I was just unable to come up with any kind of plan to capitalise on that and move forward. Would anyone be able to explain (in beginner terms) what I should pay attention to here and acknowledge to build a plan to capitalise on my advantage?
Any help appreciated. And again, I am fairly new to the game - so go easy on me!
https://www.chess.com/a/2PoxoaGYn28eLn
(I was black)