It seems like you were basically throwing pieces away the whole game...I don't think you should really worry about smaller positional stuff until you can hold onto your pieces.
Really cramped, dead position
Sort:
did anyone miss the free knight or was there some magical line that i missed that wins blacks queen?? 20...Qxd5.
oh and also i agree with ninevah, this posistion is far from cramped. And when you get into those "cramped posistions" that you think are cramped, try to make subtle posistional improvements to get yourself an edge that you might need later on if you cant find a better move.
If you don't like "long-term strategy that is beyond pure calculation." as you put it and you like action maybe you should try 1.e4
Atrial-Fibrillation wrote:
If you don't like "long-term strategy that is beyond pure calculation." as you put it and you like action maybe you should try 1.e4
Not again...
Try to flip the board after move 19 and see from the point of view of black... bad bishop... pieces barricaded... queen and knigth without useful moves... do you have more ideas with black? You shouldn't have opened the position... black should have tried to do it! And you should have tried to prevent this!
Black can move b6 or a6 followed by b5, so for me a good move is a5 and if black play b6 I think you can fight for pawn on c6 and for pushing your advanced pawns, which can be well supported by all the pieces.
If black doesn't play b6 you can anyway attack the queen side of black which is very weak (and this just because of the cramped position!).
I would say at move 16, and even still at 18 your position is much better than your opponents. Here's how I would break it down at move 16.
Material is even.
Black has a "bad bishop". This simply means that he has pawns on the same color square as his bishop. In this case it makes the bishop inactive. White on the other hand has his bishop on g2 where it aims through the center of the board unobstructed. Advantage white.
White has a nice outpost for his knight on e5. It is supported by a pawn and cannot be attacked by a pawn. It also cannot be removed by the enemy bishop. Black does not have any advanced outpost for his knight. It can always be attacked by a pawn if it advances. Also, white will have the option of trading his light squared bishop for it on e4 or d5. Advantage white.
Both players have a half-open file for their rooks. b-file for white, d-file for black. This can be hard to judge as it depends on the usefulness of the file. Since the b-pawn is potentially weak while the d-pawn can be protected with e3 (or leave the pawn on c3), this favors white. It helps that any movement of the b-pawn makes the bishop on g2 better.
King safety. Neither side is able to launch a direct attack at the king immediately. But white's king is slightly safer. Black has moved a lot of pawns in front of his king and has almost no way to protect the dark squares around his king (g7,h6,g5). Advantage white.
Ok. So we've evaluated the position and if we're playing white we've realized that there is no reason to panic. Far from it, we have the advantage in this game. If I was playing in this game, I would be optimistic and looking for a way to win.
Whenever we are looking for a plan, it should fit with our evaluation. We should consisder that black is trying to complete development (getting his bishop off the back rank) and probably wants to get his pawns off light squares so that he can get his bishop active. Black may also try to put the rooks on the d-file and push c5. So these are things we should look out for.
We should also consider our active plans like improving our pieces and attacking weak points. The bishop and knight are fine on g2 and e5 as they have a lot of activity from those squares. The queen is ok on d3, but might also like to be on d2 where she can get to the dark squares g5 and h6. The rook on d1 is ok, the rook on a1 doesn't do much. The b-file is the best place for a rook right now. So immediately Rab1 is a condidate move for us. It improves a piece and attacks a weak point(b7). It also slows black down because it makes the c8 bishop defend b7.
I probably wouldn't put any more calculation into it at this point and just play Rab1. I've improved my position and I don't see a real active plan for black.
The other thing to consider in this position is pawn breaks. Generally pawn breaks are used to increase piece activity. White can play c4 and d5 and break open some lines in the center. This makes sense if opening those lines favors white. If white has better control of the d-file or the g2 bishop would get more scope, or removing the e6 pawn could generate an attack on the king.
In the game I didn't like commiting to white playing c5 because 1) it gives up the chance at the pawn break d5 and it gives up the square d5 to black for his knight.
You're not cramped here and the position is far from dead.
Looking at the position on move 19, sample plan can be to get your knight to d6, double your rooks on the b-file and work on the weak b7 pawn. You actually have some advantage here.