Material Vs. Initiative

@aj415:

By move 27 Black has an inactive Rook on a8, very poor Bishop and weak light squares in which Black has limited capability in defending at that moment. With the bishop pair and doubled rooks and a very vulnerable a2-g8 diagonal, Black's pawn storm would have been difficult in pulling off anyway seeing as they are dealing against at least the bishop pair and queen.

For you to support the theory that Black could be in a winning or advantageous position, what coordinating moves specifically would there be to help him achieve this?

Thank you for the reply and hope you will again to my question here :)

On second look flat winning is an exaggeration but an effective counterrattack is definitely possible

.. im not an expert so my detailed analysis probably is not going to be without error but I can just give some key moves I think black could have done..

All my comments will be after move 22 and mostly opions on blacks chances ...on move 23 instead of taking with knight (a wtf ??) take with d pawn which adds another pawn to advance against those coordinated but cramped pieces which need a breakthrough.

Bringing the Queen out to the a file to do what looks to white as harmless pawn munching but really accomplishes a piece to use to attack from the flank, as well as connect my rooks.. 

I would force a trade of lightsquare bishops because with my lightsquares weakened in a big way such a move is to my advantage

Advancing the fpawn to the 4th and 3rd rank will be possible because of the pawn chain and it will be key.. by that point I will have assumed white will have opened up the hfile. but whites darksquared bishop should be terrible and the pawns bearing down on the pieces and monarchs.. and checkmate is hard to accomplish with a great defensive piece in that dark squared bishop.. the queen will have to come over and give check at h7

Defensively moves are obvious after the h file is inevitably broken My king may need to be remaneuverd but unless white is able to accomplish tripling up with the two rooks and Queen before black starts thier own attack against the king then escaping unhinged is not out of the question.. also once I get my king off the 8th rank if the Queen is in front of the rooks now it can be attacked and whites attack stunted due to the queen forced to escape (or find check)... if no check then its blacks move with tempo

Also now the a file rook comes into the game in a major way by grabbing the open file at c8 adding another piece to the flank Countterattack

That darksquared bishop is acting as a great defensive piece (only bcus it defends h8 lol) but it is on its most effective diagnal in the game and it only gets more powerful as the pawns move forward and if white is unsuccesful with the checkmate attack then it can eventually assist in the flank counterattack

@aj415:

Much better general planning! :) Still not making any specific moves which is ok, though still highly suggested, but still good general planning and analysis.

Your "strongest" point is Black's defensive piece: the bishop. As White though, or in general, You need to find the most effective way of beating that defense. Think of what White's best strategy should/would be for dealing with the Bishop and going for the King. Think about it for awhile before reading on............

What you might come up with is simply trying in pinning the Bishop to the King. Setting the Queen on the b-file, if the king ever thinks about trying to leave from the c7 square, the rook can then come up and will garuntee the bishop as a free piece. ;)

Great reading your analysis. I HIGHLY suggest that if you want further improvement to keep up with advancing basic studies and learning to incorporate those in your analysis, which will help a lot in coming up with stronger (may not be best, but for sure stronger) moves.

Whites plan is simple and very clear break through on the g or h file preferably both. 

Blacks best defense though is to stall white with a counterattack to that is to push the pawns and attack whites pieces and bring pieces into the flank attack

i really would like to think that before the g file opened up black would have the wherewhathal to move the king to f7 to allow the rook to assist in the defense and also repel anything from the queen on the H file and i'm not sure that grabbing the bishop would be that easy after that. Which is why i said escape untinged.

Moot point though.. we'll never know :(

I'm not sure which is the exact difference between piece activity and mobility but your idea of playing on the kingside should basicaly be correct though maybe it will be difficult to launch a direct assault there meaning that you need to first act in the centre. The most obvious means of starting actions there would be to prepare e5 but I just felt that your pieces are not very well placed to suport that. So, in this respect I felt your pieces are not very harmoniously placed. By the way, this structure is basically typical for modern Benoni defence or maybe rather to Schmidt Benoni and some of my suggested ideas are quite typical for it.

I'm sorry if I sounded bit too critical of your play. It's just that when analysing you tend to focus more on the mistakes than to great many good moves that were made.

Finally those statistics are really quite interesting. If you score worse with white than with black it indicates that you should probably work on this area to improve your chess in general. Without seeing more of your games I can only speculate what the exact problem might be but maybe you are not that good at using initiative. (Actually, this might just be another way of stating what you are already saying about your re-active style.)

@aj415:

Good responses. I was really hoping to have you consider the position more thoroughly than you did initially. Get your mind thinking with the true chess spirit.

@Shakaali:

1st section: I dont know a lot of openings.

2nd section: I was actually happy that you were critical, thought I was clear but I hope Im clear enough now :)

3rd: We are in agreement with the initiative. I have been able to make use of tempo many a time and feel i did in this game. But making the first attack always gives me caution. I feel like waiting for a weakness is better, even if the weakness is just an illusion to me. Just kind of repeating what we been saying.

Thanks for your critique, I am going to start studying up on making use of initiative and doing a bit myself! :)

Actually, this is quite interesting point to discuss. In general it would be most usefull to have some weaknesses in your opponents position before you launch an attack because they give your attack targets. However, if your opponent has no weaknesses it's not usually enough to wait him to create those weaknesses - strong players are not going to self-destruct just like that. Rather, you have to actively try to provoke those weaknesses. In other words you usually have to play actively to provoke any weaknesses at all.

Edit: Ok, to be totally honest I might be twisting the thruth somewhat here to make a point. It might be sometimes possible to construct very solid position and then just manouvre inside your "fortress" waiting for opponents mistake before launching a counterattack. In such a situation even strong opponents might sometimes overextend in their pursuit of victory and thus weaken their own position. However, playing like this is certainly not the way to use the first moves advantage.

No I think you are right, most strong players can probably manage defending their weaknesses, and to get better learning to extend and create enemy weaknesses is a good ability, though quite advanced. That will take some time, but before that I still need more initiative practice.