USCF Southwest Class Championship: Class C: Round 3

(1) Who is "them"? Was this like a vote chess thing? 

(2) Neither side made any huge blunders, but the game wasn't very challenging - both sides made safe moves in the opening/middlegame, but no moves that posed any real issues to the other side. For example - 9.Nd2, the earliest example of what I'm talking about, is a safe, but useless move. I know the idea is to prepare f3 + e4, but such an idea doesn't give anything for white, really. 

(3) White had the chance to win with 27.Rgf3, which looks very strong. I'm not sure why 27.Rd1 was played - there are no targets/penetration spots on the d file. 

(4) White later outplayed black again in the endgame, and black lost a rook, ending the game.

Overall, the game was above 1400 quality, in my opinion, simply because white had ideas, and didn't blunder material in trying to realize them. 

(5) I don't recommend you play 1.d4, if you want to improve. I believe that all players under 1800 USCF should strictly play 1.e4 for improvement purposes. 

5. a3 As I mentioned in Game 1, I'm still learning the Nimzo Indian and I dont recall preparing for this b6 line. I just continued with moves I knew. I've since learned that I should have played 5. e4. 
Can somebody please explain why we can play e4 here, and why a3 when black castles instead? In other words, why not e4 when black castles??

10. f3 Blacks bishop is all over my g2 pawn and by extension my rook. f3 helps block that and make a play for e4 later. 

11. b3 I didnt need to play this here. Probably should have just played e3 here to get my bishop out. 

15. e4 By my calculation is looks like I'm now controlling e4, so I jumped on it. 

19. Bxf6 finally creating some weaknesses in blacks camp. I looked at lines where black goes e3 instead of gxf6, my response would be Be7 forking rook and knight. This seems to check out ok. 

21. fxe4 took with pawn because I wanted to open the file up for my rooks hitting that f6 pawn. 

27. Rd1 I played this move because Rooks should be on open files. I however did not calculate very well and almost instantly regretted the position. Not sure why I'm not just ganging up on f6 here?

28. Rg4 This was my longest think of the game and I'm not convinced this was a decent move. I was calculating lines like 28. Rgd3 followed by bishop takes pawn or Rook takes Rook. I felt like the bishop just wins the pawn in those exchanges, so I chickened out and guarded the pawn. I chose to stay on g file simply because I liked the possibilities around g7 square. 

33...Rxa3 he offers a draw here. I said no because my next move was about to cause black some trouble

34. e5 This threatens f6 directly and hangs his bishop if he's not careful. Even if we trade the bishops and rooks off, I'm ready to start pushing my passed pawns on both c5 and h2. Black can not deal with both and I will get a queen. 

37. Bc6+ The tactical blow that loses his rook. Had the king just stayed on f8, I was trying to figure out how to start pushing pawns. I was thinking just start with h4 and keep on running. Eventually I would need to get my rook behind the c pawn and get my king into the game. It was far from over, black just walked right into the worst move he could make.

37...Kd8 He never even saw that he hung his rook until I took it. 

38. Rxa3 and he resigns. Only 2 hours into the match. Early night, get some sleep and do it all again tomorrow. 

To a lot of your comments above - this is why I recommend 1.e4 first. It's a lot simpler to play, and you learn the basic things (tactics, how to attack, how to be active) before the more intricate things, like doing Nd2 and f3 and e4, and when they're good or not. 

You simply don't (yet!) have the positional understanding or tactical ability to play 1.d4 in a challenging way. There are a lot of intricacies here. 

For example - 5.e4 is suggested by the computer as the #1 move, because if white gets in e5 advance in the Nimzo-Indian without tactical problems, and drives the ...f6 knight away, he/she usually gets very strong kingside pressure and a powerful grip on the center - this was possible right away, and it's why black played ...d6 - so in response to e4, there is ...e5, blocking white's intent. 

BTW, this doesn't mean that 5.a3 is a mistake - it's not. It's an OK move. Don't listen to the computer always - at your level, there are a lot of things about engines that you'll discover aren't very nice - one of them is that engines evaluations don't consider the number of good moves in a position, while humans, especially non-masters, prefer having many moves in a position that don't lose immediately. 5.e4 will probably lead to a much more complex game. 

I think it's fine to play 1.d4 no matter what strength you are. I was playing it since I was 1100 uscf and if anything it made it easier to play now that I'm 2200+. Your opening choice doesn't really effect your tactical and positional development, unless all your doing is studying opening which you shouldn't be. The nimzo is a very complicated opening though, especially the higher up you go, and your Qc2 line gets very tricky. I would suggest playing 4. e3 instead with 5. Nge2 6. a3 ideas, it plays much more like a standard queens gambit. Even just 4. e3 5. Bd3 6. Nge2 or 6. Nf3 should serve you well. Also I think in your game getting a quick e3-Bd3-o-o first then playing Nd2-f3-e4 would have been more principled. b3 was maybe a bit of an overreaction on your part, just e3 would have been fine. 

^^I agree with just about everything Cherub_Enjel said except what he said about 1. d4. I played it when I was 1100... and a year later I was 1800. Actually, I went back to 1. e4 right around the time I stopped gaining rating (although I haven't since left 1. e4; occasionally going back to 1. d4 from time to time).

I think anything that gets your pieces out is good, and 1. d4 fits the bill if you know what you're doing.

There will often be no problems if you follow the classical opening principles, which you can of course do with 1.d4. I just happen to think that playing 1.e4 does this even better, and is simpler. 

Thank you for the feedback. This is really helpful. Would you mind taking a look at my other Nimzo game in Round 1? 

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/uscf-midnight-blunder

Q: #2 "(3) White had the chance to win with 27.Rgf3, which looks very strong. I'm not sure why 27.Rd1 was played - there are no targets/penetration spots on the d file. "

R: "27. Rd1 I played this move because Rooks should be on open files. I however did not calculate very well and almost instantly regretted the position. Not sure why I'm not just ganging up on f6 here?"

I would guess fear of f5 which at first appears to be a nasty pin. Missing Rf4.

@MayorOfSlayer It is not quite "open files" but "half open files". In the Sicilian for example black often tries to exploit the half open c-file.

 Rat1960 ah thank you for pointing that out. That's exactly why I didn't play 27. Rgf3. It didnt go anywhere after f5 because of the pin. Maybe a line like this could have worked, seems good as long as those black passers are killed off. Maybe instead I could also trade off a rook and start snatching pawns