Very nice play, and some brilliant tactics!
Minor piece attack
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Thanks! I just engine-checked it. Fritz says 11.b4 was bad since 0-0-0 keeps more initiative. The tactics near the end were correct, though.
Nice game! That game is a great example of bad pawns not being bad at all. Black's pawns were all neat and tidy but his position was congested. Your pawns looked bad but they were dynamic and your manuvering was much less cramped than Black's. Your opponent seemed completely bewildered for the whole second half of the game.
19.c6! an easy move to overlook.
SirDavid wrote:
Thanks! I just engine-checked it. Fritz says 11.b4 was bad since 0-0-0 keeps more initiative. The tactics near the end were correct, though.
Can you cut and paste the fritz analysis for that? I think b4 was great and it's a strategic sort of move that Fritz can underevaluate. Anyway I don't see how 000 first makes any big difference.
Actually, that comment reminds me of my first-round game. My opponent traded down into a double Rook endgame with equal pawns, but I had tripled (you read that right) pawns. To be exact, he had a 4 vs. 3 majority on the Kingside and I had tripled c-pawns and an a-pawn vs. a, b, and c-pawns. I found a way to use the tripled pawns to my advantage and actually managed to win the endgame.
The reason it was an advantage is that my opponent was afraid to untriple them. The only open file was next to the tripled pawns, so I doubled my Rooks on the file and put the front Rook where a pawns was defending it. He also had doubled Rooks (he couldn't let me have the file uncontested like that) but he didn't want to take or I would untriple my pawns and he didn't want to move a Rook or the other one would be hanging. Eventually, he got frustrated and let me trade one of my tripled pawns for a healthy one and also traded all the Rooks into a bad pawn endgame. I'll post the game if you want to see it, but I don't want to bore people posting too many games.
All right, I'll go get the analysis
It says that he should play 11...Nd5 with a slight advantage to White, but doesn't elaborate. It also says 11.0-0-0 Nd5 12.Ne4 Nxe3 13.Rxd8+ Nxd8 14.fxe3 f5 15.Nd6+ Bxd6 16.cxd6 Kd7 is better (it evaluates this position at .92 at depth 14). It says the position after 11.b4 Nd5 is a .48 pawn advantage at depth 14. I'm afraid Fritz's analysis isn't always helpful; even though it's stronger than a human being I prefer analysis by strong players.
Good game, post the other one too.
OK. This was against a player I play all the time, but this is the first time I've beaten him. We seem to play each other at all of the scholastic tournaments and many of the open tournaments, so I've probably played him more than a half-dozen times. There are some interesting tactics in the opening, but the instructive pawn-structure part shows up at move 19.
SirDavid wrote:
It says that he should play 11...Nd5 with a slight advantage to White, but doesn't elaborate. It also says 11.0-0-0 Nd5 12.Ne4 Nxe3 13.Rxd8+ Nxd8 14.fxe3 f5 15.Nd6+ Bxd6 16.cxd6 Kd7 is better (it evaluates this position at .92 at depth 14). It says the position after 11.b4 Nd5 is a .48 pawn advantage at depth 14. I'm afraid Fritz's analysis isn't always helpful; even though it's stronger than a human being I prefer analysis by strong players.
ah... well... actually now I see fritz's point. Yes. 000 was better... It's a move order/accuracy thing, so it's worth looking at. You did the hard part, you came up with a winning plan (pushing the queenside pawns and castling queenside.) Fritz points out that pushing b4 first exposes your c pawn to attack fron Nd5... (and if you push the c pawn you hang the b-pawn) forcing you to defend the c pawn with your rook thereby ending your castling priviledges on the queenside. 000 first, then b5, would have let you defend the c-pawn with the king. Either that or I don't understand what I'm looking at... but hey, I've got the flu so I have an excuse.
Ah, I get it now! Thank you! I just can't decipher things like this from Fritz's lines for some reason.
Hmm, in the second game Fritz is giving me some results I didn't expect on the pawn endgame. It says 30...a5 would win, but that after 30...c4 31.b4 Ka4 32.Ka2 the position is drawn. I believe it just couldn't think far enough ahead, though, because I started playing against it and soon it said decisive advantage to Black.
Swine flu or just flu? Sorry, I hope you feel better soon.
I played in a three-round Swiss the other day and upset two class A players (I was mid-1600s, although that has changed). I liked one of the wins; it was a miniature where my attack didn't win until all the majors had been traded off. I haven't engine-checked this yet, but the attack isn't that complicated so the analysis is probably fairly accurate.