TL Chess match II - Page 25

Was considering
15. Qd4 c5 16. Nb5 cxd4 17. Nxc7 Rb8 18. b3

17 Nb5

15. Qd4 is fine

I don't think we get an advantage with Qd4 at the moment (though I don't think it's bad), and we don't seem to have any other attacking lines or options. Maybe we can get something more interesting later on by exploiting Black's king position then. So I say it's time to wait and turtle!

But what to do?

Starting off, what is black attempting...he now has some nagging pressure against c4, and Black has now taken control of the f3 square, so he could attempt some sort of kingside assault in the near future.

Thats not a huge deal, as an open g-file could benefit us greatly.

I like the move Kh1.

15.Kh1 allows us to meet black's moves:

a)15...f3 16.gxf3 Nxf3 17.Bxf3 Rxf3 18.Qd4+ Kg8 19.e5!

It took me a while to find this move, but it is important to cut down Black's counterplay (it prevents the Black queen from coming quickly to the kingside), and also threatens 20.Nd5! hitting the queen, and if cxd5 Qxd5+ wins the rook on a8. So...

19...Rb8 20.Ne4 Rf5 21.f4 Qa5 22.a3 Qb6 23.Qxb6 Rxb6 24.b4

White has a won endgame position.

b)15...Rb8 16.c6 d6 17.cxd6 exd6 This is a more accurate way to play for black. White has a myriad of options, and the game is still on. I would probably want to play some consolidating moves, leading to play against the exposed pawns on the c and d files. We would have a nice, lagging initiative.

c)15...Ba6

Black intends to finish development, and accept the slight inferiority of his position. Black will hold with accurate play, but white can quickly strip him of active possibilities.

16. b3 Rad8 17.f3 d6 18.Qd4 e6 19.c5!? dxc5 20.Qxc5

Black has lots of options. I don't think we have significant winning chances from this position, but we are really solid and safe. If we wanted bigger winning chances, we could play more actively at move 17.f3 - we could instead play 17.Qd4 d6 18.f3 (required i would think) with similar play anyway, but perhaps more chance for black to go wrong.

Other tries at move 15 for white:
1) 15.b3 is a little passive, and the move isnt true propylaxis. It is better to wait until black commits pieces to attacking on the b-file, so eat up his time before playing this move. It isnt a bad move at all, and we will often play it anyway, but we can be more productive at this point.

2) 15.Qd4 is probably very similar to my line c). There are distinct, independant lines, but they revolve around black trying to whip up an attack.

I think the only acceptable moves that we can play are those that meet the ...f3 threat. Qd4 does this temporaily, f3 permanently, and Kh1 indirectly (it makes such a push good for us).

Im sticking wit Kh1, but Qd4 is acceptable as well.

I thought that 15.b3 would be our best aggressive approach but it's not right just yet and Qd4 just doesn't sit well with me. If we play Qd4 black has a lot more ways to draw the game than we have to win it.

Ok... main contenders:

A. 15. b3, perhaps most likely answered with 15... f3. 16. gxf3, Nxf3 17. Bxf3, Rxf3 18. Qd4+ likely followed by either
A1: 18... e5 19. Qc5, Rxc3 is tempting, capturing a knight. However, 20. Rd6 would give us a major advantage and put black into a real mess.
A2: 18... Kg8. The we could play 19. Kd5, and black is getting in trouble pretty fast.

Conclusion: I like it a lot vs. f3, and does no harm vs. other moves as far as I can tell.

B. 15. Kg1 I think 15... f3, following the line set up by jfazz above likely leads to 18. Qd4+ Kg8 19. e5 and maybe Rb8. 20. Ne4, Qa5 21.a3, Qb6 setting up a likely queen exchange. Our position is not bad, but I don't think we get much more than a draw. Black has a decent pawn structure, two active rooks and the king is slightly closer to the middle of the board.

Conclusion: I think this will lead us pretty safely to a draw, unless black makes a major blunder.

C. 15. f3 ... Qb6+, then 16. Rf2 or 16. Kh1 - they both look pretty similar to me. White has a good, solid position but no real opportunities to attack.

Conclusion: safe move which seems to lead to a more complex ending than variant B - since there is no immediate queen exchange. Draw is likely but more room for surprises, good or bad.

D. 15. Qd4 then 15... Rb8 is fine but does not accomplish much after 16. b3 and maybe 16.... d6?

Conclusions: seems fine to me (I had missed obvious things before, thanks ikari and tangeng) but not stellar.

Sooo.... after wasting way too much time staring at the board to decide on one vote for one move in one of TL's chess games, I've decided to try to play b3 and try to bait black a bit. Of course, he might be reading the spoilers, but then again b3 should do no harm anyway.

For some reason I don't like Kh1. After the moves mentioned by jfazz I feel that black's bishop becomes too powerful on the a8-h1 diagonal, which will now be devoid of pawn cover. Also what would happen if after Qd4+ black played e5 or Kh6? If white continues on the path mentioned with e5, black could then play Bb7, which forces our queen off the a8-h1 diagonal into passivity and protects his rooks simultaneously. The bishop would also be ready to give a discovered check the next move which would be nasty for us. The point of e5 or Kh6 being that now Qd5+ doesn't fork the rooks and king, allowing black to move Bb7 with tempo. At the moment my gut feeling is that f3 would be solid, but again I don't have too much time or a board on my hands to give a variation. F3 would stop black's kingside counterplay and would allow us to concentrate on the center. Letting black trade down by playing f3 himself doesnt seem like the best option to me at first glance.

You said "C5" like it's an automatic response to Qd4... but that leaves open Nd5 or Nb5 and his queen dies and we are in favorable position if he wants to trade with something like Nd5 cxd4 nxc7 or nb5 cxd4 nxc7 it doesnt really matter... he will probably then move his rook to the b square and we could THEN do the b3 or b4 like everyone is so eager to do

In my last post I did not mention c5 as a reply to Qd4. In fact, once I sat down with a board I recognized I had missed obvious problems with that move and thanked those who pointed that out.

"I guess I don't see how Qd4 is not a waste of time: 15. Qd4...c5. 16. Qd5?... Bb7. 17. Qd2 is the only option, back where we started from but with black controlling the diagonal + c5. Am I missing something obvious here?"