Have no idea what to do in this game. Great pawn structure by opponent (black)

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Avatar of BinaryPill

A recent game of mine that I've tried (probably badly) to annotate. I clearly blunder at the end and I lose the game that way, but I'm more interested in the middle of the game where black positions themself so well that i cannot find anything to do and I make a whole bunch of useless moves while black prepares an attack from a similarly restricted position, though not quite as restricted in mine. My problem here the way I see it is a lack of any sort of plan to either alleviate black's attack, or set up my own. The main thing I get out of it is how black's pawns pretty much prevented me from doing anything. All my pieces seem useless consequently. I have used some limited computer analysis here, mostly to identify what went wrong at the end, though this is mostly my thoughts. The main question is what should I be doing around say, moves 14-23 where I make a series of mostly useless moves?
 
 Also, how do I prevent this text from centre alligning? 
 
 

Avatar of BinaryPill

Thanks for that Scott, definitely missed the take on c5, his pawn is way too strong after c4 and that's where it starts going downhill Queen on d3 seems strong, at least compared to what I actually got.

Also, a little correction 29's annotation should be Nxh3, not Nxf8, where did I get that from?

With Bxb8, I knew I was exchanging a stronger developed piece but I couldn't think of anything better to do. All other possibilities look considerably worse to me. (edit: Ok, didn't read that properly, f3 is completely legitimate and probably better. I often forget to defend by attacking).

Also, I know Bh3 was definitely not my worst move, but in hindsight, it just didn't achieve anything, unless I wanted a knight exchange I suppose which probably wouldn't have been too bad really.

Also, no issue with grammer and spelling. Maybe break up paragraphs a little more though? Seems hypocritical given my first post is a giant wall of text.

All good and thanks.

Avatar of BinaryPill
chessmicky wrote:

Scott makes some good points. Let me add a couple more.

I'm not sure what you had in mind with  9.Nge2. 9.Nf3 seems much more natural, Black is weak on the dark squares, and e5 looks like a great outpost. Or you might want to try Ng5 later, attacking the Be6. The knight seems to have much better prospects on f3.

11.Qb3 seems to give you a nice advantage. Black has the world's worst bishop on e6, so you would love to swap off his good bishop, And if 11...Qe7 you have 12.Bg5 followed by Nf4 with a nice initiative

I think I went 9.Nge2 to avoid blocking off my fianchettoed bishop, while still allowing catling which is actually pretty silly given that the fianchettoed bishop is not actually threatening anything at all.

 

Completely with you on the Qb3 idea and the following moves. A bad miss on my part. Like I said in my annotation, Bh3 isn't terrible but simply useless. Why did I do that when I could have developed a piece, threatened one of theirs and get my bishop to a great square? I suppose I just missed it.

 

Thanks

Avatar of I_Am_Second

A really nice thing about "pawn chains" is that you can tell what side of the board to play on, by where the pawn chain is pointing.  Obviously nothing is written in stone, but it is a very useful guide to remember.

Avatar of zAhHH

12. Bxb8 isn't forced, you had 12. f3 trying to trade your bad bishop for his annoying knight. Black should retreat here, if he tries to trade then he'll weaken the area around his king. 12. Be5!? is interesting, Black may want to trade his knight for your now dangerous bad bishop, or go ahead with his own plans of attack.