Woo, chess blog!

Salivanth

Australia1071 Posts

November 09 2012 15:43 GMT

So Thaniri's recent series of chess blogs has inspired me to do a bit of blogging on chess myself

I enjoy reading his blogs and looking through his matches, so I figured I'd do one myself. I had a decent game today that I shall show. A little about me, Chess-wise:

I am a huge proponent of "tactics, tactics, tactics" for low-level players such as myself. I believe that to a low-ranked player, improving tactics is as important as improving macro for a low-ranked SC2 player. It literally dominates everything else. Every single one of my games comes down to me executing a tactic that my opponent missed, or me losing to a tactic that I didn't see. My games are simply battles of trying to see a way to take shit, and how to stop my opponent taking my shit, while following vague positional rules like "Control open files" and "Connect your rooks" when there's none of that to do.

I've never played a game where my position played a large role in the middlegame. I've been cramped positionally, and I've been dominating positionally, and basically every game came down to either one of us taking material, or one of us having better calculation/planning in the endgame than the other. The endgame is the only time I've ever really executed strategy, in that I knew what I wanted to achieve positionally, and made moves to try and achieve it. So, I believe in tactics. So much so that if I see an opening I've never seen before, I don't even look it up, I just try and figure out a tactical solution next time I see it. It might take me seven minutes of clock (I play 30-minute-a-side games exclusively) to play the opening, but whatever: I'm practicing tactics.

With that in mind, here's a game I played. I played black, with a rating of 1345, while my opponent had white, with a rating of 1400. This game was played on chess.com, so I'm not REALLY a 1300-1400 rated player over the board, I'm just rated that high on a chess site.

1. e4 e5
2. c3 Nf6

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I play Nf6, so that if he plays d4, I can play exd4. If he takes with the queen, I can develop a piece and threaten the queen, and if he takes with the pawn, trying for central dominance (Which I believe is the point of c3) I can get a free pawn by taking it with the knight. He's ahead on the board, but as I've said: That doesn't really matter at the ~1400 level. The pawn does.

3 d3 d6

A pretty bad move by me. If he wanted to attack the pawn, he'd have defended the e-pawn with a different move and gone for d4 next. As it is, Nf3 is better. I did think of Bc5, but then he can play d4, and my knight plan fails, because I have to move my bishop out of the way when he retakes with his pawn. So Bc5 is bad, but Nf3 would have been solid.

4 Bg5 Be6

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I'm not worried about the bishop taking my knight, and while normally h6 is a move you'll want to make eventually anyway, in this case thanks to the early d6, I don't know if I'm going to be castling kingside at all.

5 Nd2 Nc6
6 Ngf3 h6

Now I play h6. I...really don't know why, come to think of it. I'm not sure why I decided on h6: I think it's because I was preparing d5, but I don't see how that bishop being there hurts d5. It means I need to remember it's there, but I should be able to suck it up and calculate for that.

7 Be3 Ng4

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His bishop's on a good square, and my knight isn't really doing much. Plus, taking it gives him doubled pawns. Though it gives me some headache if he advances his d-pawn, I can deal with that.

8 d4 Nxe3
9 fxe3 Bg4

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I have to get rid of the bishop, since d5 would fork my knight and bishop otherwise. Bg4 is the only decent play for it: I'll have to trade it off eventually, since every other possible square for the bishop is awful and screws with my position.

10 d5 Bxf3
11 Qxf3 Na5

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I didn't really need to take at that exact moment: I had tension. (That is to say, I could take his knight whenever I wanted, but he couldn't take me. So every time he calculates something, he needs to remember I can just take his knight. This is pretty effective, especially against low level players who screw tactics up routinely.) Na5 moves the knight out of the way of the pawn on d5, and prepares for an attack on the fairly weak e3 pawn.

12 Bb5+ c6
13 dxc6 bxc6
14 Ba4 Qd7

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Qd7 was a carefully considered move. Yes, it pins my queen to my king, but I did consider the tactical possibilities of this before I made the move. I'd tell you the variation, but it actually happens in game, so let's keep going.

15 O-O d5

d5 is actually a blunder here. Something both me and my opponent missed is that after exd5, I can't take back. If I take back with the pawn, I lose the queen to his bishop. If I take back with my queen, I'm going to lose a lot of material thanks to that pin on the pawn defending it. Fortunately, he doesn't see it, and instead decides to take advantage of the pin in a more obvious way: The way I'd prepared for when I played Qd7.

16 b4 Nc4

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At this point, I expected my opponent to take my knight, and I take back. My pawn structure suffers, but the bind is broken. Come to think of it, Qd7 was pretty dumb after all. If he doesn't take the knight...well, you'll see. Fortunately, my opponent screws up tactically here. So we see a classic example of low-rated chess. I screwed up, but it actually goes completely unnoticed until the analysis, because my opponent screws up even worse. Seriously, show me a player who doesn't do stupid shit and I'll show you a Class B player at least. (1600+) That's all it takes. Of course, that's like saying "Just macro well, and you'll reach Master." It's not that easy. Anyway, let's look at the line my opponent takes that screws him over.

17 exd5 Nxd2

And here we see the end result. My opponent thinks that if he takes that pawn, he wins...because my queen can't move. But now I'm threatening HIS queen, too. If he wants to continue the attack, he'll have to trade queens off, and I'm already up two pawns by taking a knight for a pawn.

18 Bxc6 Nxf3+
19 Rxf3

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At this point, I take a few minutes to think carefully about how exactly I want to lose my queen. I have to lose it, that's obvious, but what does my position look like when I do? If I take with the queen, he has a pawn very close to promotion, and he can protect it, too. I have no really good positional moves, so letting him take the queen and then having me take back with the King doesn't really do much...and after a minute of thought, I realise that loses me the f-pawn, too. That said, f6 and then letting the bishop take my queen and retaking with the king may have been the best move. We're officially entering "endgame" territory now, and having my king a rank up will be a slight advantage when it's time for the king to enter the game for real. That said, I didn't see f6, and instead, I chose:

19 ...Rd8
20 Bxd7+ Rxd7
21 c4 Bxb4

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Remember what I mentioned about tactics? e4 was the correct choice here, but my opponent missed Bxb4, and I got a pawn for free. I'm now up two pawns. If I can trade the Rooks off, the endgame should be mine.

22 Rb1 Bc5

This is a pretty bad move by me. He can play Rb5 and bully my bishop off it's square: I've basically given a move away for no reason. That said, my opponent does the rather powerful move:

23 Rb8+ Rd8
24 Rd8+ Kxd8
25 Rxf7

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Sadly, he hasn't quite calculated far enough, and I can win the pawn back and preserve my position.

25 ...Bxe3+
26 Kf1 g5

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Now my position looks decent. I know I can move my bishop to d4 if he attacks it. Fun fact for those who may not know: If a bishop is diagonally in front of a pawn, that's a strong shape in the endgame, since it means both pieces protect each other, and neither piece can ever be captured by a King while they remain in those positions. Especially since Bishops often have key squares that allow them to defend or threaten multiple key squares at once, having a pawn there to stop the King pushing the Bishop back is often critical.

27 Rb7 Rf8+
28 Ke2 Bd4

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Just getting my pieces in better positions: The bishop on d4 where I want it, the rook on the open file.

29 Rb8+ Ke7
30 Rb7+ Kf6
31 d6

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This actually does me a favour. Gets my king closer to the action. I begin to worry about the d6 pawn, but then I realise I can put a bishop on b6 and keep my rook on the last rank, and there's nothing he can do. The only piece that can take the bishop for now is the rook, and if he does that, he'll be losing the exchange, and without his rook, my king and rook can stop the queening by themselves.

31 ...Bb6
32 Kd3 Ke6
33 d7 Rd8

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Ke6 forces the pawn to move forward, and then I'm able to play Rd8. He's going to lose the pawn and be forced to trade rooks.

34 Ke4 Rxd7
35 Rxd7 Kxd7
36 Kxe5 Ke7
37 a4

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He plays well here, taking one of my pawn for one of his. At this point, I'm in the part of the endgame where I start calculating exhaustively. There's few enough pieces that I begin to think: "Okay, I should be able to calculate whether a certain plan wins me the game or not from here." I can't quite do that, but I settle on my plan. I'm going to abuse the mobility of my bishop. I'll advance on the queenside, and if he moves on that side, I can seal it up tight. Then, if he moves to the kingside, I'll be able to get there first with my king, and he's screwed. I can defend one side while I'm on the other, and he can't be in two places at once with his king. With that in mind, after a very long think (About ten minutes) I play h5, knowing I can seal up the queenside with my bishop's assistance.

37 ...h5
38 Kf5 Be3
39 h3 h4
40 Ke4

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At about this point, I realise my plan has gone to shit. (I need to stop making such long, intricate calculations: Except in king and pawn endgames, they invariably fall prey to an unseen move.) Fortunately, I swiftly concoct another one. I can win the king race. Basically, with the queenside locked down, he has two choices. The first is to break the queenside apart with pawns. If he does that, we'll have one pawn each on the queenside. He'll capture mine while I move to the kingside and kill everything. His pawn would promote before mine, except for the bishop, which I'll sacrifice to kill his queenside pawn before it promotes. Then I'm on the kingside with a pawn, he isn't, I promote and win.

If he goes for the kingside, I can do a similar thing: I can move my king to the queenside and kill everything, and sacrifice my bishop to kill the first pawn he tries to promote. The second pawn will be too slow, I'll promote, and I'll win. I don't have time to calculate all this out, but I feel good about it.

40 ...Bf4
41 Kd5 Kf6

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He makes his move for the kingside, his best chance.

42 Kc6 Kf5
43 Kb5 Ke4
44 Ka6 Ke3
45 Kb5

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And here is his last mistake. I don't know WHAT was going through his head when he did this, but he wastes two moves for no reason at all. (I analysed it, and if he hadn't done this, I still win, but still.) It ends quickly.

45 ...Kf2
46 c5 Kxg2
47 c6 Kxh3
48 Ka6 g4
49 Kxa7 g3
50 Kb7 g2

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And my opponent resigns.

So I guess the lesson to learn from here is this: Everybody at low levels stuffs up. The key is to try and screw up less, and the best way to do this is to study tactics. The quickest way to lose a game is to screw up and lose a piece, and that applies to your opponents, too. If you are tactically better than your opponent, you can usually play pretty straightforward games: Get a material advantage, trade into a winning endgame, and win the endgame from there. That's my default strategy for winning a chess game, and with a few bumps in the road, that's how it went here. I took material with the knight tactic, got an advantage, and didn't let it go, which led to me outclassing him in the endgame when I had a piece and he didn't.

To higher-rated players: Feel free to give advice. Lower-rated players: Feel free to ask questions. Similar-rated players: I dunno. Go study more tactics, we're clearly all terrible

I don't know if I'll do any more of these, but I felt like at least doing one.

Thanks for reading!

Faldinerous

United States62 Posts

November 09 2012 21:55 GMT

Hey, interesting to see some chess, I haven't done much with it in a while but it's fun to look through games now and again.

Firstly, something you should consider is chessvideo.tv has a game replayer, you put the pgn in the box there and then it will kick out code you can use in most any forun and it will give a nice rundown move by move (and take up less space) you can then put notes in the bottom like you did and it will save space and make the game a little easier to follow. Just a suggestion.

Now on to chess:

Tactics are important, you're right. They're especially important when you're lower in level (you say you're around ~1400, is that FICS or USCF?) but I definitely think that strategy can not be over looked or ignored at any level as "good tactics comes from good strategy" (Jeremy Silman) The meaning behind this is that good strategy gets you into good positions which then allows your fancy pins and forks and whatnot. I'll put (Strategy: A small description here) next to some important strategic principles for you that should be followed at any level.

Now on to the game:

First let me preface this by saying "Good job!" You played better then your opponent and won the game, that's really all that matters. There are a lot of comments and critiques here, and I'm sure a lot of them are worded less then as nicely as I would like. (I tend to be blunt.) But you did good and I am not trying to put you down as a player in any shape or form. We were all new at stuff at first and the thing that helped me improve the most was kind folks going over my games pointing out the ideas and errors that I didn't know about or didn't see.

2.c3 I don't know much about this opening as I don't remember seeing it much, but something looked off so I looked it up... apparently it's a bad variation of what I used to play (the Ruy Lopez). It says that the correct response to 2. c3 is d5! because after exd5 Qxd5 he can't run your Queen out with 4. Nc3 anymore and you get to keep control of the center. (wiki "proof")

2.. Nf6 Already stated d5! is supposed to be the best response, but I like this move. You give some decent reasons for it, but those aren't the important ones. In fact most of those involve hoping your opponent misses something. (Strategy: Never play "hoping" anything, there are no hidden variables in chess) The reason I like this move is it forces 1 of 3 options. 3. f3 keeps all of his original plans in line (d4 push) but now that he's played c3 and f3 he has trouble finding a safe place for his King. 3. Qe2 to protect the pawn puts the queen in front of the King, leaves the d file vulnerable (hurting his future d4 he wants) and puts the queen on a bad square blocking off the dark square bishop. The last..

3.d3=+ while not a bad move does help black considerably. Firstly it's a reaction to something Black did, in chess you want to try to keep purely reactionary moves to as few a number as possible, it just gives control of the game to the opponent. Secondly it's contrary to white's plan of playing d4 as that will now require moving the same piece twice in the opening (Strategy: something you want to avoid as it slows development)

3... d6? == You said most there is to say about this, couple things you missed, d6 responds to threats that aren't there and it gives your opponent freedom to do whatever he wants rather then forcing him to react (which you've already taken the first move initiative advantage away from white last move. Also, Nc6 is better because it develops another piece giving you more center control (Strategy: I'm sure you know that almost all opening play focuses on the center)

4.. Be6 You made several mentions of why you didn't play 4.. h6, that's fine, but you didn't say why you played Be6, what's his point in being there right now? Do you plan on trying for d5? Do you want to castle Queenside quickly? Maybe eventual a7 pressure? This is important, every move you make should have an idea behind it or at least a form of what you want your pieces to look like. (Organization wise, you can't whittle on the pieces as you play

) For instance if you want to push d5 then you definitely want to keep your f6 knight. so something like Be7 then O-O would be good, it doesn't protect the knight but if he takes it you get to develop a piece that normally is hard to find a place for.

Personally I would go with 4... h6 and HOPE that he takes the knight because I'm gonna ram that doubled pawn so far down his throat he won't know what to do. (Strategy: doubled pawns are normally bad because they can be hard to defend, but in the center they can be good if you use them to bust into the center. If you could trade your f pawn (outside) for his d pawn (inside) you have better center control)

7... Ng4 If you plan on d5 then your f6 knight is protecting it. However his dark square bishop is his good bishop (Strategy: the bishop on the opposite color as your pawns is your good bishop as he can attack your opponents pawns and not be blocked by your own) So the trade here isn't a bad one especially after all the action goes down in the center and the game opens up. (Strategy: In open games, where the center isn't clogged with pieces, bishops tend to be better than knights because of range. when the center is closed the knights ability to jump over pieces makes them better)

8. d4 You didn't have a clear goal and he did, so he reached his first.

9... Bg4? += There is a term called "chasing ghosts" which means you create something to be afraid of and then react to it. Yes, Nd4 would fork your knight and your bishop, but there is a pawn on d4, and he worked REALLY hard to get that pawn on d4. The only way he could get the knight there realistically is after 9... exd4 10. Nd4 but then you're exchanging and 10... Nxd4 just continues the exchange. A fork is only scary if it can't be turned into a trade and that's all this would be so there's nothing to be afraid of there. What 9... Bg4 actually does is moves your bishop for a second time before you've developed your pieces. Better is Be7 looking for Bg5 to attack his weak doubled pawn (it can't be protected by another pawn)

11... Na5? As a basic rule never put your knights on any edges unless you have a REALLY good reason to do so (Strategy: knights normally can go to 8 squares on an edge it drops to 4, on a corner it drops to 2.) That aside, the pawn on e3 IS weak, nice spot but how is the knight going to attack it? c4 is protected by his knight and there's no way to protect it with one of your pieces, not only that but this loses the knight to 12. b4! ++= Forced is Ne7 blocking your bishop. (a good reason to have developed him earlier.)

12. Bb5+?! Ahh, the pointless check, you gotta love it. MUCH better is 12. b4!! With the better positioning of white's pieces and being up a piece 12. b4 really should be winning.

14... Qd7? As you said it works out that it was a bad move as it loses protection on some vital pieces

16... Nc4 All of these prior moves, including the Qd7? and sacrificing the d pawn (it was missed but you still did it) were all made to save your Na5? blunder. I'm not trying to be mean, just showing you the importance of the "keep the knights off the edge" rule.

After he misses your fork chance the game kind of plays itself so I'll leave this really long reply to up through the middle game. Good game.

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