I think 13.g4 in the first was too early. You later blundered twice, giving away the game. This isn't very tolerable. I wonder what other word you'll come up with later!
Help Alison With Her Tolerable Moves
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I've seen that in both games you've had a tendency to castle queenside. Why is that? You must think about castling kingside too.
In the second game, you were once again in a rush to push that d pawn. Patience is needed.
In addition, c4 doesn't lead to dry, drawish positions! It depends on how the players play.
Good Luck!
Mar 24, 2015
0
#4
In the first game I went queenside because it was connected with a long-term plan involving a kingside attack, and in the second it was an effort to do two things at once - remove the king from the center and put a rook on d8 to pin. Rd8 was also an option, but I thought it made more sense to move the king while I was at it. Obviously I castle kingside most of the time, but O-O-O isn't a losing move by itself!
Rd8 in the second game was probably better.
Wait. I just saw 13.Bxb7!
ehh why not in the first game 20. exd5 Qxe3 21. R4e2?
Hi Alison! From watching those games, you seem like a good player who is taking a great approach toward improving your game. Maybe I am wrong, but thematicly I noticed that some of your moves (particuarly towards the end of the middle game) are chasing his/her pieces around rather than developing robust attacks. An example would be in the second game Bg3 and allowed him to double and even triple on the c file.
In the first game, you probably were better at 16...Qe6 then you probably went for a decently sound attack except for a couple of major things. Defense especially for the K comes first. Nothing stops an attack cold like dropping a piece or checkmate!
Though it takes a tempo when Qside castling the K is often better placed on b1. In this case even better as the Black QB is off the board (though the weak e4 needs to be watched). Also when a major piece is on a pin diagonal, its usually worth a tempo (according to Fischer) to get it off. Obviously the Q hurt but also your rook from g7 probably should've been noted. Though attack is on the mind, threats can't be ignored.
In the second game you were probably better at 16. Qg4+ but it's a position that might need a good think. I might figure your position is so good (White's h1 Rook, N and King position aren't very good) that the quick exchange of Q's with ...Qe6 is worth it. The plan being though you have the isolated pawn with so much wood off and White's poor dev major threats aren't imminent and with the 2 B's picking off a Kside pawn (with other threats) to create a passer might be doable. In the game it probably wasn't worth getting too tricky when simplification might've had better winning chances.
Why do you think you've improved 200 elo in the last couple of months? Also, the rule to get a draw against a higher rated player is to play for a win. :) Playing an opening you don't even know (c4) is generally a recipe to lose. As it happened, you transposed to a line you would've played had you gone with d4 anyway, but you couldn't have known that ahead of time.
First one:
You were better out of the opening up to 8 ..Bg4 because of the big center, and then things started to get difficult:
9. h3?! does just sac a pawn. h3 was bad even if the pawn was not loose because h3 just loses a move. The main objective is to get your king safe and pieces developed. The natural move 9.Be2! with the idea of 0-0, or the cool move 9.Ne5! counter attacking the bishop.
12. 0-0-0? Black's queen is literally sitting right next to your weak king and it is very awkward to defend the position. The comp suggest after 12 ..Nbd7 the positional piece sac 13. Bxb5!? using extremely precise tactics of the Queen's x-ray on the a8 rook. All other lines are bad, a clue that it is very difficult to defend your king.
13. g4 is too slow but there isn't anything better. Luckily black had the wrong idea and wasted moves with his knight (13..Ne5 and 14..Nc4 to trade with your bad bishop). If the simple 13 ..Bg7, comp still say equal (if you know the b5 sac trick) but it is a very uncomfortable position.
17. Qc7?? The queen looks attacking on c7, but it actually isn't doing anything there because black's queen is perfectly positioned against it on e6 (you don't have a piece that can attack e6 at all) and there is not even a check available.
it is simply a waste of 2 moves after black's Bg7 and 0-0 (notice how your queen and king are both on the c-file). Moves deep into the opponent's camp you always need to double check that it is supported with other pieces in an attack, or else your queen will get kicked all over the place and in some cases could even get trapped.
The easy 17. Rd1! is clearly best. You are not in time to prevent 0-0 anyway and you have 2 extra moves to do something else.
After 19. f4?? the game is lost because of black's big threats against your king and your terribly placed queen helping out. If 19. Qa5 instead you could try to hang on for a while.
The second game black played good aggressive moves in the opening and was a lot better almost the entire game.. You had many easy chances to win and unfortunately spoiled it by not continuing the agression. I think you need to practice using a tactics trainer.
The position after 15. Bxd3, you missed the in between move 15 ..Bb4+!!, gaining an important tempo so you can get the last attacking piece (the rook on h8) in. After some trades you will be up a piece at the very least.
19.. Rhe8? I would barely consider this move in this position because this does not stop white from castling! The king is right there for the taking and you can't just let it slip away.
There is the simply winning tactical shot 19 ..Bd3!!. Thats rather hard to see, so 19 ..g5! also make lots of sense as that is an important tempo in getting your pawns going. If you wanted to keep everything solid, 19 ..Bh3 is the easy play (the first move that came to mind) with advantage after 20. 0-0-0! (only a daredevil would play this. Other lines black is much better) and the forcing sequence 20 ..Bxf4+ 21. Qxf4+ Qxf4+ 22. Nxf4, and 22 ..Rc8+! with initiative and advantage.
game 1: 9. Ne5 and white is definetely better. When you are able to counterattack your opponents bishop on g4 then do it. At the end Nd5 really cant be good for your opponent. Just from a general point of view. Simply taking with either the pawn or rook should be good or at least okay.
Message me for detailed help!
Mar 24, 2015
0
#15
Many thanks for all of the responses - as usual, I'll answer in the order received:
13 Bxb7 is a threat! - Remember the theme of this game (which was repeated by wrathss), it's *initiative*. If white stops to grab a pawn, black will be able to make a useful aggressive move in response, and the bishop on b7 is OK but maybe a little misplaced, meanwhile you are losing time, and black can always grab on b2 someday to equalize material. I wasn't afraid of white grabbing the pawn.....though perhaps I should have been (typically I'm a big pawn grubber - I like to steal pawns in a middlegame and grind it to death....Nckchrls would probably confirm this habit)
"The endgame after ex Qx etc. is actually OK!" - you're right about that, as it turns out! I looked at that variation (but not as deeply as you did) and thought that giving away my DSB would allow black a nasty positional edge on the long diagonal, but it seems my passed d pawn is more than enough, and the simplifications favor white! Perhaps the lesson here is to play simpler chess - I tried to play something fancy, and it got me killed.
"Don't just chase the pieces around - attack for real!" A salient point....that game was very frustrating at that stage because I thought white's position was falling apart only to be counterattacked, and I played this positional move, trying to say "Hey, your light squares are weak", but the response was very simple "hey, your whole position is weak".....oooops.
"1 - you were playing something very demanding that you didn't understand, bad idea. 2 - Ne5 was an excellent move, why didn't you play it!?" - To the first point, I should absolutely work on my Gruenfeld....it's not played a lot at the 1400 level, so part of it is that I don't get much chance to practice, but that's not an excuse - 1.d4 is an invitation to the Gruenfeld, and I am responsible for that. As for Ne5, I looked at that move and didn't play it....if it were a Slav with Qc2, I would have slammed Ne5 almost without thinking, but being unfamiliar with the opening made me second guess myself and make a bad move. You were absolutely correct to point out both problems - they feed one another.
"1. Protect the king! 2. Watch the long diagonal! 3. Why not go for the endgame in the second?" - To the first point, I'll just say that I know intellectually that Kb1 is the *right* move....Ben Finegold has the little saying "always play Kb1", and, in fact, it's been given the monicker of "the grandmaster move" because weak players (that's me!) don't play it when they should and grandmasters know how to fit it in - point taken "always play Kb1!" The issue with the long diagonal is a tricky one - I certainly took note of the x-ray even from the position when I played Qg3, because I knew the rook would end up on d4 for the B to target at some moment. My reasoning (and it might have been wrong) was that the exchange sacrifice wouldn't hurt that much given the fact that I recapture with a beautiful bishop on d4, and the forthcoming attack looks very promising. I looked at the endgame option and almost went for it....I had my "hand" on the queen, but the isolated pawn felt like a big concession, and I thought to myself "why did you work so hard for this good position if you're going to let white chew on your isolani forever? Maybe you'll be worse in the ending!" This was very bad thinking - because I'm a pretty good endgame player for my rating, and I actually like grinding (easier to draw, harder to lose due to king safety problems). Maybe the number beside my opponent's name caused me to be afraid and not play moves I would play against *any* opponent at my own level.
I don't know when exactly the 'improvement' came - it was a gradual and invisible process....but the *points* didn't appear until very recently, and they came with an 80% win score in correspondence chess until my opponents were mostly 1500+....and then it stabilized. Certainly I improved a little at a time (like we all do), but the "reward" in the form of rating points is very recent, so it feels like I improved 200 points overnight because that's what the score looks like.
OK, I will get to everyone else (because *all* of these comments have been helpful!), but it takes a little bit to write these, and I need to think about all of the suggestions. Thanks everyone! You're all mensches and menschettes.
I think the first game just had some tactical problems. After 9.h3 Black's queen did have useful squares to go to so the pawn sac wasn't working. The reason White's initiative wasn't great was also because the moves that led to it (h3 and Qxf3) didn't promote any kind of development advantage or an attack on any weaknesses. If you look at the positions in moves 9 and 10 you can see that the only difference in White's position is that the queen is on a different square. This isn't a rule and sometimes a move like that can be a problem for the opponent but it genertally isn't.
A simple example of a pawn for initiative is this:
In the second game I think 9...Bf5 is fine. After 10.Qa4+ Qd7 11.Qxd7+ Kxd7 White still has problems.
18.Bf4+ Ka1 is probably fine. White still needs time to develop and it's not easy to pick a place to castle. The light squares on the kingside are weak and castling queenside is unlikely.
Congrats on your progress! You definitely deserve it :)
You are getting a lot more aggressive which is great to see -- willing to sacrifice pawns for development and initiative when the opponent has wasted too much time. I will say though that you might be limiting yourself when you say how eager you are to draw higher rated players. A draw is great, but above all, every game of chess is a battle of ideas! Is keeping the position dull just for the sake of not having to think really that satisfying? (We play chess to think and problem solve after all :) ) You still have a right to challenge your opponent's ideas, and argue that yours are better than theirs. True, a lot of times you will lose, but at least you put everything into it, came up with your own ideas, and that's all a chess player can do. And sometimes you will beat these higher players -- they're not invulnerable :) But you have to want it enough :)
My old thread "help Alison with her terrible moves" did a lot for my growth as a chess player - partly as a result of the insight you all provided, I've jumped over 200 ELO points in the last couple of months (yayyyy!). I still make many, many mistakes, of course, but I can see a real improvement in my chess.
OK, enough self-congratulation....1400 is not a very big achievement, and I still make terrible moves, so let's jump straight into Alison's new analysis thread with two losses against the same opponent who is about 200 points higher rated than I am. The reason for showing the games is that I think I actually had a better position in *both* of them and gave it away somehow - you're going to help me figure out how!
So there you have it, folks - the latest installment of me thinking a lot of brilliant things and doing a lot of stupid ones. Thanks in advance. This analysis is a huge help!