lol Elubas - I guess that the trick is simply to exteriorize from whatever has happened, and lose that "personal" viewpoint of "it happened TO ME". As soon as you can do that, you can probably draw whatever benefit the game has in store for you.
Absolutely.
Finally getting down to work on the Tannemaat game... with some delicious musical accompaniment, to keep me interested :-)
Get ready for another brilliantly annotated game, with cutting edge theoretical ideas (lol!!) and hopefully informative analysis... :-)
Is analyzing with Houdini any good?
Some high-rated (as in IMs and up) people think that it's bad for you, as Houdini and such machines will just decimate your thinking...
So it's probably a good idea to think for yourself first, and then verify stuff with Houdini later. This way you still protect whatever brain cells remain in your skull, before firing the merciless monster and letting it NUKE them!
In this vein, I'm posting here game #2, pre-Houdini.
Your comments and suggestions are welcome. I promise to take personal offense at anybody below the IM rank who will dare to challenge any of my opinions expressed therein, whether he's right or not.
If he's right, and rated lower than me, then I'll really go berserk!
But in this friendly atmosphere, I realize that I have many "unknown areas" in the analysis hereby provided - and I will really appreciate feedback, jokes apart.
I will later post this same game again, with whatever additional information I will glean through my work with Houdini (which, again, as some important coaches point out, is just WAY inferior to work with a personal coach - but alas, this is what my means permit for the time being).
There we go (this annotation just goes on and on forever! It took me 24 seconds just to scroll through all of it in the PGN posting window):
It's amazing, throughout the middlegame, how many variations led into an exchange of his N for my B - leading into a situation of a great N (for me) vs. a bad bishop (for him).
I failed to identify this during the game - but actually, reading some Silman (most notably, in his Mentor courses - especially on the one about the Art of Trades) - I now recognize the theme.
This can revolutionize my thinking - and is an excellent answer for anybody who wonders, whether a premium membership in chess.com can lead one to the master title. I'm sure it can.
Thanks for posting the games! Your annotations are very good and I especially liked the first game, since I sometimes play the London System with White.
All the best for your future games! Looking forward to more annotations and maybe a win from you next time...
Who knows? It's already been documented, that from time to time I do manage to win a game of chess.
These instances where that happen are indeed akin to rare jewels!
I think that you'll like game no. 2 from my Cannes tournament thread - definitely a game to be proud of.
Another great effort (although I did lose it at the end) was game 5, from the same thread. Enjoy and share the bliss!! :-)
BTW what do you think about my pawn grabs in that London game here? Should I have or shouldn't I have?
Had I been White in this game, I would not have allowed you to capture on b2.
5.Qc1 is a move I have played before. I know that White is okay, even after Qxb2 in theory, but I just don't like to play down a pawn when I am not exactly sure about the compensation.
So looking at it from the Black perspective, I would most likely grab the pawn too. After all a pawn is a pawn and White still has to prove compensation.
I am too much of a materialistic player anyways, so I usually take whatever I think I can get away with.
7...Qxa2: Sure, why not! The queen does not seem in danger of being trapped. I would feel more comfortable with the king already castled, but right now I see no immediate danger.
I think I really like 9...g6 but Ne4 seems fine too.
10...Nxc5 good move.
12...Nxd4 either that or Nxb3, I think. Yes, I think the variation with Nxb3 looks quite playable.
14...Qa5: I would have played this same move for sure. It just feels so natural, as you said.
16...e6 seems good. While I would not necessarily have found the concrete threats under the pressure of a real otb game, especially with the clock ticking, e6 just feels right (yes, I play too much by intuition and not enough by calculation, I know!).
After the move played in the game, it was hopelessly lost of course. The draw was undeserved but I wouldn't turn down a present like that either. 
Will have a look at the Cannes tournament thread later... right now I need to check on the Gashimov Memorial.
So, <NM Petrosianic> - it would seem that I had the right idea, to get the R behind the passed pawn - except that by the time I tried it it was already too late.
On your note to my 37th move - I don't think that my K reaches b4:
37. Ke4 Ke6 38. Kd4 Kd6 39. Kc3 Kc5. What did I miss?
The rest of your comments, from move 40 onwards, merit deeper study, which will happen at a later moment.
Thanks for the attention! I'll surely learn something from this.
- - - -
<Alpenschach> I see that we have something of a similar mentality, then. Long live materialism! :-)
So, <NM Petrosianic> - it would seem that I had the right idea, to get the R behind the passed pawn - except that by the time I tried it it was already too late.
On your note to my 37th move - I don't think that my K reaches b4:
37. Ke4 Ke6 38. Kd4 Kd6 39. Kc3 Kc5. What did I miss?
The rest of your comments, from move 40 onwards, merit deeper study, which will happen at a later moment. Then I'll also look at <AlpenSchach>'s no doubt valuable commentary.
Thanks for the attention! I'll surely learn something from this.
37.rb4 was correct i think, only then run the king over. the only reason not to blockade with the rook first is if the black king can dislodge the rook (like achieve kc5 before kc3 first). it is a b pawn actually, i had the same exact endgame a few months ago and held. xD unfortunately i don't have my analysis as my computer crashed shortly upon analyzing that game, and that was one of the few data bits i did not recover. i'm sure black should be winning eventually though, it's far from simple, even with a computer i remember, my king and rook was somewhat better placed but i had a pawn less on the kingside relative to your game.
I like your endgame ideas very much. They have immediate appeal - and I'll certainly dedicate at least a good hour to them later tonight, or tomorrow.
Probably the endgame, in this game, is where I needed most of the help - as I probably understand the preceding stages pretty well.
I like your endgame ideas very much. They have immediate appeal - and I'll certainly dedicate at least a good hour to them later tonight, or tomorrow.
Probably the endgame, in this game, is where I needed most of the help - as I probably understand the preceding stages pretty well.
here is an interesting rook endgame if you like, it's an important one, regarding an outside passed pawn:
basically h5 can be met with takes and h6
In this ending, once the pawn went to a7, white's king could no longer find shelter from checks on that square.
On the other hand, had the pawn stayed on a6, black's own king seems to provide him with adequate counterplay - for example, blocking the white king's approach from the excellent square e5.
A nice ending, showing the drawing tendencies of the a-pawn.
I will need to see, with my Houdini, which of these positions would be instead winning, had this pawn stood on the b- or on the c-file.... a separate study in itself.
In this ending, once the pawn went to a7, white's king could no longer find shelter from checks on that square.
On the other hand, had the pawn stayed on a6, black's own king seems to provide him with adequate counterplay - for example, blocking the white king's approach from the excellent square e5.
A nice ending, showing the drawing tendencies of the a-pawn.
I will need to see, with my Houdini, which of these positions would be instead winning, had this pawn stood on the b- or on the c-file.... a separate study in itself.
yeah playing around with different plans with an engine is the way to do it probably. there are resources on endings by dvoretsky, averbakh, fine, and nunn too. plus there are tablebases for 6 pieces freely online or less (7 pieces via chessok software).
of course you want to be careful about engine evals, for instance the following game i had recently was always a draw despite +3 evals:
for eval of win/draw positions: no further progress and fortresses are the three things to look out for. and endgames with pawns same side with reduced material are very often draws as the above game of mine indicates in a kind of an extravagant way.
otb, it's just maximizing activity of your best pieces, your pieces relative to your opponent's.
Yes - I can see that - as in your advice re. my game, you first advocate activation of the R along the 7th rank (f3 instead of f4 and thereafter), then better activation of my K, not allowing it to be cut off from the d-file by his R.
Not sure that this would have been enough to hold, indeed (I still need to examine this later) - but this is the master's advantage over the amateur: with more experience under your belt, you already know which kind of play will be the most trying upon your opponent, will demand the greatest amount of effort from him, and may result in his fatigue, loss of concentration or simply despair in trying for a win.
About the computer evals and stuff - of course, when an eval doesn't make sense, I tend to pursue the position further until I see whether it's Houdini or myself who were right... problem is, when I believe Houdini and then it's a fortress or something I guess... but these things generally tend to be pretty straightforward - a reasonable human player sees when there is no meaningful progress to be made.
BTW - I do have the Dvoretski resource - but have never delved any deeper into it than example n. 40 (still within pawn endings). Never getting around to doing some things...
Halfway through analyzing the game with Houdini - and a good openings database.
Learned a couple of ideas from the database, but with Houdini - there are just so many tactical nuances and points that we missed in this game (both Stephane and me) that it's just amazing...
If anybody repeats what I've done here, just simply going over my analysis up to the moment he plays Rook a to d8 (not including Petrosianic's suggestions, just yet), it's just amazing how much we 1900/2000 players fail to see - how many defensive resources and nuances, attacking continuations... this isn't about the 'subtle/incomprehensible pawn sacrifice' we missed - I'm talking more like forks, elementary stuff (for Houdini it is elementary for sure).
So - yes, humbling indeed - but also useful to first make your own analysis, and then see clearly and cruelly, exactly where you are lacking - and hopefully, learn and adapt some new ideas and thoughts for future encounters.
Speaking of which, yesterday I lost another game to the 2062-rated Gerard Grodent. At some point, again, you'll see it posted and analyzed.
For some reason, losses (especially when too frequent) remind me how many things I have to do apart from chess... it takes considerably more time to get around to actually look at them, annotate them and stuff - comes much more naturally when I'm brilliantly winning.
However, this loss is a gem of sorts - if only because my opponent created an interesting take on a familiar theme: many people know about the knight sacrifice on f7, when you draw the king out, so that your queen can give check on e6.
This theme had been in the air for a while in our game (I was playing black) - and I thought it wouldn't work. I thought I had everything covered on the Q-side...
However - my opponent managed to create a diversion on the Q-side, so that the sacrifice did become effective. The diversion on the Q-side was actually intended to open new and unpredicted communcation lines in his game - to the king-side.
I did manage to find a clever defense - but later, overestimated his chances in one of the resulting positions, and so missed a chance to create lively and active counterplay, as we saw after the game.
His combo WAS brilliant - however, had I continued with precision, the game could still be played for three results, though it was objectively (in my view) better for him.
You'll see all that, and much more, as soon as I get around to it...
People do get discouraged by losses sometimes...
Given too many of them, and suddenly we don't have so much time for chess, we get too busy with our concerts and other projects, never get around to actually analyze and post the games...
But a couple of wins - and the fighting spirit is back with a vengence, and we're even ready and willing to post and analyze losses - which are, no doubt, interesting, instructive and full of points to learn, master and appreciate.
Due to some personal contingency I had to skip a couple of rounds - so I have played by now four games in the tournament, scoring half a point out of them (the first game draw).
Beautiful!
As you realize, I'm in no hurry to post either the games or my analysis to them... more pressing matters need my attention... but we'll get there at some point - especially if some fun, bright wins come along the line.
Otherwise, I already plan two new threads here - one about "chess philosophy" (of a very light order), the other about another type of chess which I've been recently starting to play, right here on chess.com.
See you!
"But for me the "performance" aspect is a huge part of the experience; it's where I use the tools I learned to beat my opponent in a back and forth battle of wits. If I can do that well I consider that a good achievement (and ratings reflect this in particular)."
This part seems to be as harmless as saying my favorite part of a meal is the dessert, and perhaps why. Is someone going to tell me, "hey, who do you think you are preferring desserts and being all proud of it?"
"For others, maybe they're just ok with playing one really nice game even if they did badly on others. And that's fine -- who am I to tell them what to be satisfied with"
And this is like saying others prefer the main course. And who am I to be against them preferring that?
"Especially now that I have this rather regular blog here, which is collecting readers by the thousands (amazing! The Cannes thread has already 6500+ views. My "first ever FIDE tourney" is at 4993 (!!) viewers.
Viewers keep gathering at my threads, in many cases, long after they have ceased to produce new content.
I have more readers than several other PROFESSIONAL and PROMOTED writers in this website - where I'm neither one nor the other.
Even the best writers (amazingly deep and entertaining people such as Silman and Brian Smith) only arrive on occasion to readership figures that are double or triple my own - not more than that. "
I could have looked for ulterior motives here, spin this by saying "he's bragging!" but not only didn't I look, I genuinely didn't think this was arrogant at all. I thought you were simply happy about what happened -- I get that. But when I make a hopeful comment about my rating, you assume I'm bragging. I mean, it wasn't really saying much -- it wasn't even an increase, besides 5 or 10 points -- maintaining a rating isn't really much to celebrate about :)