Positional And Tactical Awareness

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Avatar of Reachingout96

EDIT: I play black

Na5!! is the move of the game! I would like to know what your thoughts are for my game, I think I have something good going here and would like to keep playing games like this. This was in a 10 min Blitz game

Avatar of eric0022

You did not specify whether you were playing White or Black. Can I assume that you are playing White?

 

I inspected the game already and you were playing as Black. I am not so sure why White opted to play 11. Bf4 trying to trade bishops when the g3 pawn was attached to the f4 bishop and obviously followed the f4 bishop into the graveyard, and on top of that, the f2 and h2 pawns became 'lonely' as a result.

 

11. Bf4 Nxc3 12. Bxd6 Qxd6 bxc3 is another possibility, while 11. Bf4 Nxc3 12. Bxd6 Nxd1 13. Bxc7 Nxb2 is another very messy possibility, but I do not really like it though.

 

14...Na5 does not look like the move of the game, even though Stockfish agrees with 14...Na5. The most the knight can go is c4, and the game will be rather long.

 

What I can say, though, is that 19. Nxb7?? is the blunder of the day, failing to anticipate the coming mate threat and going after the free pawn.

Avatar of Reachingout96

I say that Na5 is the move of the game (in my eyes) because it does so many things:

1. I'm putting a knight on the edge of the board (which is usually considered bad or at least not ideal) but in this case the justification is immense 2. It allows my bishop to stop guarding the pawn and gives me a chance to re-position it to a better square.

3. It eyes up the great C4 outpost and eventually forces the trade of the Bishop and Knight because the knight is too powerful on that square. 

All of this allows my last piece the bishop to become activated and sets up a trap in the process, and for me to see this in my game makes me believe that Na5 is the move of the game. 

Avatar of eric0022

Actually the knight does not do much on c4 since it is not participating in the kingside attack. Still, like you mentioned, the knight is powerful on the square and restricts the movement of the queenside pieces. I have made moves like Na6 and Na5 lots of times in my life. For me, move of the day will be more like, a queen sacrifice with queen takes pawn for a checkmate threat.

 

EDIT: Sorry I have been reading it wrongly until I now realise you wrote and meant move of the game, not move of the day. I mix up both terms unknowingly.

Avatar of Reachingout96

 The point of Nxc3 is that if he decides to do 12. Bxd6 I respond with ... Nxe2+ 13. Qxe2 Qxd6

And I am up a full piece. It was an attempt to make the game more complicated and for my opponent to make another mistake.

Avatar of Reachingout96

Thanks for your Input it looks like your rating is pretty high and I'm glad you were able to give some interesting analysis on my game.

Avatar of eric0022
Reachingout96 wrote:

 The point of Nxc3 is that if he decides to do 12. Bxd6 I respond with ... Nxe2+ 13. Qxe2 Qxd6

And I am up a full piece. It was an attempt to make the game more complicated and for my opponent to make another mistake.

 

Probably worth a try. Lots of things can happen in these situations where the Black knight is a desperado piece.

Avatar of eric0022

More or less no major errors from you for the whole game. I can't say much for smaller ones but the game looks perfectly fine.