It seems to me that you destoyed your queenside pawn structure yourself, with your 12th, 14th & 15th moves. What was your plan? When I look at the position after 11...b6 I see clues to attack on the kingside: both your minor pieces are available there, while his light-squared bishop is (for now) cut off on the queenside. You could have tried things like Qd3, Nd2, f4, etc. to generate play on the kingside. I just don't see the plan over on the queenside, where you didn't have any advantage to begin with, and especially after 15.bxc5, which leaves all your queenside pawns as targets. Hope that helps some!
What went wrong?
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Thanks :)
I saw 2 things that were significant (as opposed to minor):
(1) Your N/f3 is badly placed, nearly paralyzed by the central pawns.
(2) 21.Qd5 was poor, giving Black a winning position immediately. Look for a move here that denies penetration by Black and maintains some active threats (short or long).
agree that in order for you to play Bc4, you must have a purpose. normally an early Bc4 will be countered with e6-d5 and then it has to retreat to b3 and becomes almost useless with loss of tempo. your knights should come out first.
but d3 is also rare. it doesn't accomplish much. in the sicilian, black tries to claim the center with his pawns but in exchange it lets you develop as white. d3 is too passive. it doesn't challenge black's central control and, although it allows the dark bishop to come out, it also limits your light bishop's movement. more common is Nf3 followed by d4.
and this is just me guessing based on this game alone, but your moves seem to start to get suboptimal very early on. maybe a little of opening study with the opening explorer could help.
Thanks :)
Aug 26, 2010
0
#8
FullmetalAlchemist wrote:
tip: dont play 2.Bc4 against the sicilian
better still: do not play 1.e4?? (loljk its not a blunder...)
play 1.d4 its better
Bah, bs etc. on all the crap about how you should have played differently in the opening -- yes I'm sure there are sharper lines for both of you in the first few moves, but that doesn't matter. That's not where you lost the game. You lost the game because of positional errors in the last dozen moves. You had been playing fine, then you just made nonsense moves for no reason I can understand.
Why did you surrender the b-file to him? You lost because you surrendered the only meaningful positional feature on the board to your opponent without a fight.
20.Rxb8. Qxb8... and now you simply MUST challenge him on the b file, you can't just give it to him. You must play 21.Qb3 ... if he takes he straightens out your pawns for you...
But no, instead you played the meaningless Qd5? giving him Qb2... that right there is where you lost the game. Exchanging queens is MUCH better than gifting his queen a good square. In just a couple of move his queen penetration wins a pawn, and then your whole queenside just collapses.
The moral of this game is exchange fearlessly when it's to your advantage.
Ahh yes, I wish I would have seen that move during the game. Thanks!
tonydal wrote:
JG27Pyth wrote:
Bah, bs etc. on all the crap about how you should have played differently in the opening -- yes I'm sure there are sharper lines for both of you in the first few moves, but that doesn't matter. That's not where you lost the game. You lost the game because of positional errors in the last dozen moves. You had been playing fine, then you just made nonsense moves for no reason I can understand.
Yeah, I never cease to be amused (and amazed) by all the people who see a 70-move game and stop their analysis on move 3, as though it's all over by then...lol (too many opening pamphlets or something).
I'm amused and amazed and dismayed at what an overbearing grouch I am in that earlier post. The next time I post something like that, smack me.
I believe the answer to 'what went wrong' was simply poor pawn structure and the inactive bishop and knight on the kingside during the middlegame, which often leads into a painful endgame. Also, you should have taken the time to double the rooks along the b-file.
Thanks :)
I think your position started to turn south when u used your D pawn instead of your C pawn in the defense of your light squared bishop. When he took /w the knight your queen side pawn structure become very weak and vulnerable to attacks.
Also maybe if u went along your normal path, but used 21: QB3 instead of QD5 your pawn stucture would have been much more managable if he were to exchange queens.
You just needed to control the center better, and have better piece coordination.
Aug 29, 2010
0
#15
FullmetalAlchemist wrote:
FullmetalAlchemist wrote:
tip: dont play 2.Bc4 against the sicilian
better still: do not play 1.e4?? (loljk its not a blunder...)
play 1.d4 its better
I'll quote Robert James Fischer (Bobby Fischer) on this one: e4 is "best by test."
@what went wrong, well Bc4 is a bad choice for white. Instead of trying this, simply this:
"The first 5-6 moves of all Sicilian lines are easy-peasy to memorize." Just focus on the next 3-5 to obtain much better results.
Obs: Take a look at the comments in the moves I posted above to know the names of the variations of the Sicilian defense, if you don't know them and want to learn more.
Also, about the game, as it's been said here before, d3 is too passive, and exchanging all those pieces with a weak pawn structure is never good.
I feel like I played this game decently, staying fairly even on pieces, but just ended up in a losing position. (Yes, there was the blunder I made with my knight towards the end, getting it trapped, but the game seemed already lost for me at that point anyways). Somehow my pawn structure just seemed more disjointed as compared to his.