Rapid 823 Vs 1816. I lost but fought as hard as I could.
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First, you played pretty well against your opponent. But I think you missed some chances and made some mistakes in this game. Your opponent used various techniques and calculation skill when he saw his chance, and it led to his victory.
The first thing I saw was 6.c3 and I think this move is quite ambiguous. This is not a bad move, but at the same time it is not a good move either. Of course this is a normal London system setup, but in this position c3 is not a meaningful move. If you find what c3 is doing here, maybe you can see c3 protects d4 and blocks Bb4+ check. But d4 is already well defended by e3, and you don't have to consider Bb4+. Because your opponent has already developed his bishop to d6, Bb4+ is just a tempo loss because he has moved bishop twice. And even if your opponent really plays Bb4+, you can simply deal with that with c3. Then he has to move his bishop again, and as a result he moves his bishop three times and this is a massive tempo loss.
After all, 6.Nbd2 is better in this position. When you look at this position, you can find that currently e4 is an outpost for black's knight. (Knight is strong at the center. e4 is a nice outpost because after black plays Ne4 you can't kick it because you can't play f3 now.) By 6.Nbd2 you can keep your opponent's Ne4 in check, and also you can have an idea to play c4, attacking black's center pawn structure. (And after the trade you can have an idea of Rc1, placing your rook in open file.)
When your opponent played Qc7, black made a Queen-Bishop battery. This battery has an attacking idea of Bxh2+ when white castles kingside. (Only possible when there is no defender of h2)
What you have to see in this position is that black's dark square bishop is a very strong piece. So in a setup like this, it can't be bad to get rid of black's dark square bishop with trading. Dark square bishop is a good bishop for black (it has different color with his pawn structure), and it is bad bishop for white (has same color with white's pawn structure).
After the exchange, black has to play Qxd6, which means he moved his queen to c7 and d6, it is a tempo loss.
And now look at your opponent's position. Black has lost one of his strongest attacker - dark bishop, and now black's light square bishop is a very bad piece. Black will have a hard time to activate his bishop. Plus, the 5...c6 that black played to make a Queen-Bishop battery now blocks Nc6. If Black plays Nd7, it will be much harder to activate his light squared bishop.
Another chance was your opponent's 10...Nxe5. You played 11.Bc2 in this position, in order to keep your good bishop and if your opponent capture your knight, you were planning to take it with your knight. 11.Bc2 is not bad, but this move is pretty passive. In this position, your Nd2 Knight is very passive piece. It cannot be developed to the center and does not help center control. Maybe you can play Nb3 with this knight, but it is bad move because it's far from the battlefield. (And if your opponent plays c5, this knight will be a useless piece.)
The best move here was 11.Nxe5. Your opponent will have to recapture it with his bishop, and then if you play 12.Nf3, you can threaten to take black's good bishop.
After this, you got rid of your opponent's strong center knight and solved your problem of passive knight on d2 with developing.
If your opponent plays Bd6 to keep his bishop, you can take a knight and create a double pawn, and then you will have ideas of Nd4 (centralizing your knight. If black plays c5 you have Nb5) or Qc2 battery (hitting h7).
The most crucial moment was 15.e4. It looks like there are two attackers and three defenders for e4 pawn, so it looks fine, but black kicked one defender with 15...h6, and he also has the idea of placing rook to e8 afterwards. So eventually 15.e4 made the e4 pawn as a weakness.
After 16...dxe6, 17.Bxf6 was a blunder, because after 17...exf3 the bishop is hanging and 18...fxg2 is also a strong threat. So white should have not allowed black to play exf3.
After kingside castling, black played 19...Bh3. The idea behind this move is that if you capture the bishop with your pawn, your opponent will capture a knight with a rook, and if you ignore the threat, your opponent could capture the knight with his rook and then after gxf3 he captures your rook with bishop. The purpose of these moves was to remove the defender knight from f3, so that he can use the idea of Bxh2+.
In the endgame, black was up 3 pawns than white. So equal piece trade is good for black. (If you're losing in the material point, it is better to avoid equal trade. Because as it goes closer to the endgame, it will be harder to overcome the material point. If you are losing in material point, you should avoid trade as much as possible and leave the possibility of tactics.) That's why Black forced the queen trade with 30...Qd5+. Black knows that trades are good for him.
39.Rxd3 Rxd3+ is also a trade that black favors. Even though white took one more pawn in the trade, black has powerful passed pawns on kingside and now the only concern for black is that white has more pawns on the queenside. But black is much faster in promotion, so it becomes clear that black wins. (But even if this exchange did not happen, it won't change that white will lose.)
After pushing some pawns, black made a g4-h3 connection and then moved his king to queenside. One trickey thing about this pawn structure is that white king cannot capture the defender pawn g4. In king + pawns endgame, if king captures the defender pawn, the king cannot stop the defended pawn anymore. (If white king captures the g4 pawn, white can no longer stop black's h pawn promotion.) Black definitely knew this technique, so he moved his king to queenside to get rid of the only concern - white's pawns on queenside.
This is all of my review in this game, and hope this helped you. Please ask me if you have any questions.
I mean, it was a good game as your rating is really below your oponent. C3 was not necessary beacuse he did not planned to push the pawn to c5. So opening was 4/10. There was no need for you to keep your king at the center in the middle of his attack. Middle game was 3/10, and the endgame was 2/10, because there was nothing to do there and even so you exchanged rooks. But.... that player also commited a lot of mistakes, which is suprising because he was playing against you. As example, at the end his only advantage was 2 pawns open, and it is good, but he just sacrifaced and did some really non sense moves. I would say study endgame and practice the London system as it seems you like it.
Jul 18, 2024
0
#8
You played good also because your opponant was higher rated than you but c3?! was not necessary What @Dantex and @Asnitte Said
I brought as much as I could to this game. Did I miss a tactic or strategy that could have turned this to a win? I also know that my endgame is in the basement. Any and all comments would be helpful. I felt like this was David vs Goliath.
8/pp5K/8/1Pk5/P7/8/7q/6q1 w - - 2 59
[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2024.07.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "KingGoKnightKnight"]
[Black "A-R_F"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "A45"]
[WhiteElo "823"]
[BlackElo "1816"]
[TimeControl "900+10"]
[EndTime "12:25:24 PDT"]
[Termination "A-R_F won by checkmate"]
1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Bf4 e6 4. e3 Bd6 5. Bg3 c6 6. c3 Qc7 7. Nbd2 Nbd7 8. Bd3
O-O 9. Bh4 e5 10. dxe5 Nxe5 11. Bc2 Nfd7 12. Qb1 Ng6 13. Bxg6 fxg6 14. Ng5 Nf6
15. e4 h6 16. Ngf3 dxe4 17. Bxf6 exf3 18. Nxf3 Rxf6 19. O-O Bh3 20. Nh4 Bxh2+
21. Kh1 Bf5 22. Qd1 Qf4 23. g3 Bxg3 24. fxg3 Qxg3 25. Nxf5 Rxf5 26. Qb3+ Kh7 27.
Rxf5 Qh3+ 28. Kg1 Qxf5 29. Rf1 Qg5+ 30. Kh1 Qd5+ 31. Qxd5 cxd5 32. Rd1 Rd8 33.
b3 Kg8 34. c4 d4 35. Rd2 d3 36. Kg2 Kf7 37. Kf2 g5 38. Ke3 Kg6 39. Rxd3 Rxd3+
40. Kxd3 g4 41. Ke2 h5 42. Kf1 h4 43. Kg2 h3+ 44. Kh2 Kf5 45. b4 Ke5 46. c5 Kd5
47. a4 Kc4 48. b5 Kxc5 49. Kg3 g5 50. Kxg4 h2 51. Kg3 h1=Q 52. Kg4 Qh4+ 53. Kf5
Qf4+ 54. Kg6 g4 55. Kh5 g3 56. Kg6 g2 57. Kg7 g1=Q+ 58. Kh7 Qfh2# 0-1