Steeven - thanks for the analysis, I overlooked that my knight was protecting the g square, so I had him with the queen-sac combo! Nice.
Gambiting with Black!
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I don't agree with your positional analysis after move 9. ...Nc6 in the first game. You don't have the option of where to castle. 0-0-0 would be foolish since white has an open a-file and black has weak light squares where the king would be and no LS Bishop. Additionally, white's doubled-pawns are actually quite nice, since they could have been used to build a massive center.
Sep 7, 2009
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#24
At some point, with the board opened up ,yes, that woudl have been a liability, but the idea would have been to connect the rooks and be able to push up the h file with support. My knight protected a7 so I had some time to maneuvre. However, were I to castle, I agree, kingside was the best choice overall so perhaps the option of castling was not as relevant in this game. More important was the speed of development I suppose.
Good point.
To the second last comment:
Well I realise that I was sacrificing a good bishop, but I thought that the compensation of doubled queenside pawns, room to maneuvre around my king, then gain in development tempo of the knight with Nc3- which lead to better castling options and rook mobility, were great enough to trump the white square control issue, which as I mentioned was temporarily hampered for white anyway. In addition, I did not find that the semi-open file helped my oponent at this point, so I do understand the theoretical principle of what you're saying, but I don't know if it fully applies in the exact practical circumstance in the game in question.
Perhaps an example of what the following good line (4-5 moves) from that position, after move 9. , would look like ?...