TL Chess Match - Page 23

In line a), the move 15. d5 is of a somewhat limited value for white. Firstly, he souces of counterplay are now extremely limited, and his c4-pawn is weak forever. I would meat 15. d5 with:
15...Qg4!? with the intention of generating an attack on the white king AND pressuring the e4 pawn (and thus indirectly reinvigorating the attack upon the c4 pawn, due the having the same piece guarding them).

Now;
16. f3 Qg6 17. Bb2 Nh5 18. Kh1 f5 19. Qd3 fxe4 20. fxe4 Rad8 with yeah, a pretty even middle game, but a better endgame for Black; in an endgame, white will have weaknesses on c4, c3 and e4. Black's only weakness is d6, which white cannot access.

There are perhaps even better moves for Black, but that endgame looks very hard for white to hold

21. Rbe1 Qg5 22. Rxf8+ Rxf8 23. Rf1 Rxf1+ 24. Nxf1 Qg4 25. h4 Nf6 26. Kg2 Qd7 27. Ne3 Qxa4 28. Kg1 Qd7 And black has a strategically won game

Why even bother moving c pawn? Black can't take on c4. But should white take on c4 black should respond with exd5 in which case we have equality. Against 12... Bxd5?!, White has 13. e4!

Now the white knight on d2 is beautifully positioned and white has Ba3 lines for his dark squared bishop.

I really don't like white's prospect of playing e2e4 and then f2f4 here.

Threatens the A4 pawn and allows a potential tempo gain. If anybody sees can explain a better move I'll probably change my vote lol. I'm kinda an impatient player, and I tend to miss a lot of waiting, building moves.

Finish development, has to be played eventually. Qd7 does not look too bad either, connecting the Rocks and binding the white queen because of the pawn at a4. I just feel that d7 is a good field for our Knight, if it has to retreat via e2-e4 and follow-ups

Seeing as jfazz already pointed out 12.. c5! and i agreed with it... might analyze the follows up above me to show why they're weak

Re8 seems fine here because yeah it'll be needed anyways, it might even be better in some lines.

But Qd7 seems ew cause any follow he can play with e4 kind of equalizes the position

i guess the only moves i can think of here are 12...Rf8-e8, 12...d5 and 12...c5. with 12...c5 he may reply with either 13. e2-e4, 13. e2-e3. with either reply i think a decent follow would be to apply pressure to the c-file and his cpawn by 13...cxd4 14.cxd4 Ra8-c8 followed by Qc7 etc.

We are not sure we want our rook on the e file yet. After e4 e5, the rook will probably have to switch to another file with a loss of tempo. In fact some lines will involving pushing the f pawn so the rook is better where it is right now.
With regards to Qc8...we don't really need this preparation move in order to push c5. Also it will require moving the queen again before being able to move the a-file rook to a centralized file later.

12...c5 or 12...Qc8 - both are heavily analysed in one of my previous posts, on the last page.

Simply, 12...Qd7 acts in a similar fashion to Qc8, but with less overall effect - the Queen on c8 promotes a very strong c5 break, and allows the queen to move to b7 or a6 as necessary. She can then also quickly mobilise to the kingside after we play e5.

sample line: 13. e4 c5 14. Qc2 e5 15. Bb2 Nc6 16. Nf3 Qa6 17. dxc5 dxc5 18. Nd2 Rad8 19. Rfd1 Qc8 and Black has a dominating position.

12...c5 has already been heavily analysed, and is indeed a great move. I won't reiterate the points of others, but suffice it to say, I think the Qc8 lines offer more in the long run.

Why not Re8? We do not yet know for certain, until a few more central pawn moves are made, what the best file for the rooks are. It would be ill advised to move a rook at this point then. We may want to push the f-file pawn, so that rook shouldn't move, and the other may be needed for the c-file. Best to wait.

d5 is overzelous, as shown by my previous analysis - we want to play against his dark square bishop and make it as bad as possible - so the pawn chain c5-d6-e5 best achieves this, basically wasting that piece. Our knight pair could then have a SIGNIFICANT edge over his knight-bishop in an endgame.

I can see that it is slightly stronger than D7 and we can always move it to b7.

It's the move I'd play, Qc8 is too complicated for me

I like the idea of playing c5 because it takes advantage of black's better pawn formation but i don't see how his dark square bishop will get weaker if you give it more targets. oO

we have finished early game and have now entered mid game, so safe play is a must

With this move we solidify our C line as well as the E diagonal.

eventually the next move should be c5, but at this point I do not wish to be the first one to tempt the attack on c5, d5 squares

I favour d5. Continuing with jfazz line posted earlier we get:
13. cxd5 Qxd5+ 14. f3 Qc6
Now the white f-pawn is pinned and we threaten Ng4 while simultaneously attacking the c-pawn. We should be up a pawn if this line is continued.