Analysis of Jim West vs John Brosnan

Although Jim has posted tons of games on his blog (which is over 10 years old!) and I have posted several of John's games in the past, I still want to analyze this game. Both these players are friends with me here on chess.com. I met Jim once at the Marshall CC, and I see John every Monday night at the Bergen Chess Mates. You may recall I played him once and I made a mistake early on and never fully recovered.

Anyways, here's the game.

I think 11...Ra7 was an idea that Kasparov tried in the 80's.

That is correct - GM Simon Williams recommends it as well. Rook gets off the long diagonal and slides into the game somewhere along the 7th rank.

I never said Ra7 was a bad move. I personally agree with you that this was a good idea because the battery on the d file came to fruition in a bunch more moves. However the engines are always picky and say that the fact that you never castled early on made your position difficult.

I agree - and then when I finally did castle - it seemed too late.

True, but Kf8 was a move only an engine would play.