I chose this position because black has 3 pawns that I can play target practice with. I found this task to be impossible because Paul played his knights to protect the pawns and advance very well. My question is this, was the strategy of isolating blacks pawns for target practice bad because he has knights? If my opponent had bishops in this case, would it be easier for my play to continue? Comments are all appreciated. Great game Paul, you played it well.
James
By the way...if anyone wants to see the game in full, and how difficult it was for me to proceed, you are welcome to check it out in my game archive. What I did was effectively isolate 3 of blacks pawns to give me a better pawn structure...but I was not able to take the pawns...like planned. HELP anyone..need some strategical guidance.
James
while i'm obviously no master, it strikes me that the position you've given is probably about even, blacks knights are poorly placed at the edge of the board, and you can gain tempos off them while advancing you a and b pawns. Black's rook is also poorly placed, while you can get control of the c file pretty easily, and use it to get at blacks a7 weakness. Looking at the way you went about the game, i don't understand 25f5 at all, i feel like you need to attack the queenside as fast as you can, and if you can get a5 in quickly then his knights are going to be spending some time on the 8th rank while you can do something like Rc1 then Qc5, with a view to winning the d or a pawn, while keeping black's position cramped. I've not done a great deal of analysis, but i definitely feel that after something like a4 Nc7 (to guard d5) a5 Nc8 (forced) Rc1 Nb5 (improves the knight, kicks the queen) Qc5 white has enough counterplay on the queenside to force at least a draw.
My 2 cents, hope it helps.
James, that's a very interesting position to me.
In general two minors for a rook very much favors the guy who gives up a rook and keeps two minor pieces. But that's just in general. That specific postion gives the rooks a lot of space to work with and your connected a and b pawns, facing down one a pawn -- are very strong -- his d pawn is passed and isolate. Maybe a great player or a computer can see whether someone has a strong advantage in that position you stop at... but for us regular players, the game is just far from over, both players can set difficult problems for the other to solve.
So, imo you didn't so much have a bad strategy objectively, but it is certainly bad strategy to arrive at a position you don't know how to play. I looked at the remainder of the game, and to me it looks like you were flailing. What were you trying to accomplish? What was your queen doing unassisted over on his Kingside, what could she hope to do there? Why sac the exchange? That looked just like panic or frustration, it was unforced and you were left a simple piece down and the game was effectively over.
You didn't know how to work with the rooks v Ns imbalance. In many endings, particularly where rooks are involved, the player with the more active pieces and the initiative wins. You wanted to keep your rooks using the open files and threatening to double on the seventh rank. You wanted to keep him on the defensive as much as possible and activate those queenside pawns of yours, force them down the a and b file. That N pair of his is terribly hard to use well -- and defensive chess is also difficult. -- if you'd gotten him defending good things would have happened for you.
Instead you looked like you were meandering with no clear objective. Then you panicked, sac'd the exchange, and your goose was cooked.
I just looked at mike100000's remarks, and although I don't know if he's correct or not in his details, I think you can see his remarks and mine are travelling down the same general path.
Some thoughts on this. Why play 8.d5 right away giving up e5 more easily? You could try e3 and then advancing rapidly on the queenside. 10. b3 seems a little slow did you look at Qb3/a4 or even f4 Nxc4 Qb3. 17. Nb5 looks stronger than Ne4.
In the posted position you gave up two pieces for a rook and some weak pawns. The problem is your rooks can't do a lot on either of the files.
Lets say youn continue a4 if Nxa4 b5 and you attack both knights
So a4 Nc4 b5 Nc7 Qxa7 might be a start
Thank you for the advice...yes, I need to study the material imblance. My moves were bad because I thought I had a nice sacrifice coming on the kingside....which proved to be wrong. I found it very difficult to activate my rooks...He placed his knight on the c file outpost square so I couldnt reach the seventh rank via rook. I think where I went wrong was the control of the e file. I should of control the e file better so I have play.
I thought that I could not advance my a and b pawns until his knight were off the chessboard. This was wrong thinking?
The strange queen moves I made over on the kingside....was because I thought I had a sacrice with good compensation, which proved to be miscalculation, and missing some knight hops.
JLueke,
I played d5 to gain space, and have an advanced d pawn. It was an experiment, I have never played it before.
I really like the b3 move, because it allowed a fianchetto'd bishop, which was my way of dealing with blacks fianchetto bishop.. So that after we swap bishops...His dark kingisde squares are weak.
Regardless of the earlier play I would have looked to advance the queenside pawns and tried anyway possible to get active rooks involved. There's no point in playing on the kingside as far as I can tell
"I thought that I could not advance my a and b pawns until his knight were off the chessboard. This was wrong thinking?" --
Yes that is entirely wrong thinking. The advance of your pawns was one of the strongest resources you had. And how could you hope to get his knights off the chessboard without pushing the pawns? You didn't have any minor pieces to exchange! He was the one with an extra piece. You should have played to force him to sac a N on a pawn to prevent promotion -- that was the only way you were getting his N's off the board at a profit."
It should be no surprise that if you misunderstood the position this way it was going to be impossible to find strong moves and good plans.
My plan to get his knights off the board I soon realized was hopeless. I wanted to find a way to exchange one of my rooks for his 2 knights. After a couple of moves of trying to set this up I realized my opponent would never allow this...so my thinking was wrong. This is the beauty of chess, I am so new at the game that I have sooooooooooooo much to learn.
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I felt in control of this game...I think I chose a bad strategy. My opponent is paul1963 with a rating of 1746. Paul played very well after the moves you will see below. The game ended in my resignation and I think maybe because of a bad strategy that I chose. Check out the game view my post underneath, comments are all appreciated!!!