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On January 19 2012 04:20 qrs wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2012 04:12 garbanzo wrote:Hmm...it seems I'm super late to this party, but can I still join in? If so then my vote is probably Rc6. + Show Spoiler +I read most of the discussion between Ke1 vs. Rc7+ and I don't really like where it was going. With Rc6 we can always follow it with 30. Rc7+. Nah, of course it's not too late. There is a page for 29. Rc6 on the tree, by the way, though there's not much posted to it right now. Like I said above, I have nothing particular against Rc6; I think the main thing it's suffered from is a lack of analysts. On the other hand, I don't think that not liking the other two moves is a good reason to play it. + Show Spoiler [elaboration] +So far, we've only really come up with one basic plan, which is to use Rc7+ to get our Rook to the other side of the board where it can start eating Kingside pawns (at least the h-pawn). Ke1 is a necessary defensive move that we'll probably have to play sooner or later, and Rc6 is an intermezzo move that we can play before Rc7+. It's in no way a substitute for the other two moves, since if 29. Rc6 is our first move, then 30. Rc7+ will presumably be our next and 31. Ke1 will probably follow that.
So the question of whether to play 29. Rc6, as far as I can see, comes down to the question of whether we'd rather have Black's Bishop on b5 or a6. I don't know the answer to that one way or the other.
+ Show Spoiler +Yeah, you have a good point. If there's no good argument to moving that bishop to b5 then I think Rc7+ might just be the most straightforward option, followed by 30. Ke1. I'll wait for further arguments before changing my vote.
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On January 19 2012 01:15 qrs wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2012 00:34 Mash2 wrote:Ke1+ Show Spoiler +I thought this was our intention after playing the last move. I don't see what him moving .... Ra2 does to change that. We are giving up that a3 pawn in exchange for getting our king into better position. Rc7 doesn't look bad, it's an option we've had for a while now and I'm still considering it, but for now I like Ke1. I don't think that moving our knight should even be considered. Nb3 is suicide for our rook and Nc4 ends in us giving up a bishop and knight for his forward pawn and bishop. I posted on the tree my reasoning for changing my vote to Rc7+ earlier, but I'll put it here, too: + Show Spoiler +It was and is our intention to play Ke1 (which is the main reason we played Kf1 last move, as you said), and it was and is our intention to play Rc7+ (which is the main reason we played a whole bunch of moves, including Rc1, Bf4, and fxe3 (to keep the Bishop on f4). It's just a question of which to play first, and here I cast my vote for 29. Rc7+ for a simple reason: if we play Rc7+ first, we are guaranteed to be able to follow up with Ke1 on the next move (as Black must respond to the check), whereas if we play Ke1 first, Black can play 29...Bd8 to prevent us from ever playing Rc7. On the tree, beginning here you can see the discussion between me and Zen over what we can do if after 29. Ke1 Bd8, but as of now the answer seems to be, 'not very much'. If you have a plan, post it! : Actually, because of you, I started looking at 29. Ke1 again, specifically in that line that worried me, and now I'm no longer sure it's as good for Black as I thought it was... Here's where the line starts, again, and here's as far as I've gotten in analysis. Right now, it's looking to me like we may actually have a decent shot in that line. The only thing about it is that it might take a very drawish turn, if our opponent wants it, and I'm not sure we can stop him. However, so far I haven't yet found a really threatening line for Black.
+ Show Spoiler + I think Rc7+ could turn out just fine for us, but the reason I want to play Ke1 is because I like the line qrs posted on the tree. 29. Ke1 Bd8 30. Rc6 Bb5 31. Rd6+ .... (he moves his king to either c8, e8, or e7). You suggested 32. a6 as a possibility, but what stops him from ... Rxa3 threatening a6 on the next move with his bishop and rook? Regardless, I think we are in a good position following move 31 if it follows this line. I guess the question becomes do we want to play Ke1 to get into this position? Or, do we want to play Rc7+ in order to start picking off pawns with our rook. That's the way I'm looking at it right now. Then again, I've had little success with predicting Ng5's moves this game. 
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On January 19 2012 06:04 Mash2 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2012 01:15 qrs wrote:On January 19 2012 00:34 Mash2 wrote:Ke1+ Show Spoiler +I thought this was our intention after playing the last move. I don't see what him moving .... Ra2 does to change that. We are giving up that a3 pawn in exchange for getting our king into better position. Rc7 doesn't look bad, it's an option we've had for a while now and I'm still considering it, but for now I like Ke1. I don't think that moving our knight should even be considered. Nb3 is suicide for our rook and Nc4 ends in us giving up a bishop and knight for his forward pawn and bishop. I posted on the tree my reasoning for changing my vote to Rc7+ earlier, but I'll put it here, too: + Show Spoiler +It was and is our intention to play Ke1 (which is the main reason we played Kf1 last move, as you said), and it was and is our intention to play Rc7+ (which is the main reason we played a whole bunch of moves, including Rc1, Bf4, and fxe3 (to keep the Bishop on f4). It's just a question of which to play first, and here I cast my vote for 29. Rc7+ for a simple reason: if we play Rc7+ first, we are guaranteed to be able to follow up with Ke1 on the next move (as Black must respond to the check), whereas if we play Ke1 first, Black can play 29...Bd8 to prevent us from ever playing Rc7. On the tree, beginning here you can see the discussion between me and Zen over what we can do if after 29. Ke1 Bd8, but as of now the answer seems to be, 'not very much'. If you have a plan, post it! : Actually, because of you, I started looking at 29. Ke1 again, specifically in that line that worried me, and now I'm no longer sure it's as good for Black as I thought it was... Here's where the line starts, again, and here's as far as I've gotten in analysis. Right now, it's looking to me like we may actually have a decent shot in that line. The only thing about it is that it might take a very drawish turn, if our opponent wants it, and I'm not sure we can stop him. However, so far I haven't yet found a really threatening line for Black. + Show Spoiler + I think Rc7+ could turn out just fine for us, but the reason I want to play Ke1 is because I like the line qrs posted on the tree. 29. Ke1 Bd8 30. Rc6 Bb5 31. Rd6+ .... (he moves his king to either c8, e8, or e7). You suggested 32. a6 as a possibility, but what stops him from ... Rxa3 threatening a6 on the next move with his bishop and rook? Regardless, I think we are in a good position following move 31 if it follows this line. I guess the question becomes do we want to play Ke1 to get into this position? Or, do we want to play Rc7+ in order to start picking off pawns with our rook. That's the way I'm looking at it right now. Then again, I've had little success with predicting Ng5's moves this game. + Show Spoiler +No, I mentioned 32. a6 in a different line, for if he played 30...Bb7. In that case, a6 would gain a tempo by attacking the Bishop.
31. Rd6+ looks forceful, but like I said, I couldn't really find much when I looked at it. What seemed like the bottom line to me was, we can push Black around a bit, but at the end of the day, he stabilizes and picks off our two Queenside pawns while holding on to all of his own. 31. Rc5 looked more promising to me, but as I said, leaves the door open to Black to go for a draw by repeating moves.
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+ Show Spoiler +After not doing any work for the past hour because of just staring at this board, I'm really starting to like Rc7+ more. The main reason for wanting to play Ke1 was to add protection to the d2; however, we still have time to do that. Rc7+ makes that rook substantially more active and the time for that is now - while he is evening the score in pawns. Ke1 just feels so passive compared to Rc7. I'm on board
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Alright.
Let me just close this now.
I will make my reply tomorrow so you'll have the deadline till Monday and we can start up the other match on time.
Cheers.
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OK, about the next move. Now that we've played 29. Rc7+, Ng5 has only two legal options 29...Kd8 or 29...Ke8. Originally, I thought + Show Spoiler +that in either case, our best response was probably 30. Ke1. The purpose of that move is to defend the Knight, after which we can play d6 to drive away the Black Bishop (without Ke1, we can't play this because of ...BxP BxB RxN), and then kill the Black h-pawn.
However, I've had a change of thinking:
+ Show Spoiler +If Black plays 29...Kd8, I still think that we need to play 30. Ke1, because Black is immediately threatening to win a piece by removing the guard of our Rook: ...RxN BxN KxR. To guard against this, we need our King defending the Knight. However, if Black plays 29...Ke8, I'm no longer sure that we should respond with 30. Ke1. A theme of this game recently has been the waiting game that we're playing with Black about the Bishop on e7: he wants to move it, to get it active, and we want him to move it so that we can go kill his pawns. In that light, 30. Ke1, 31. d6 would be spending two moves to force Black to move a Bishop that he wants to move anyway. Maybe we can put that time to better use in a different way. I think 30. g4 and 30. h4 are both worth looking into. g4 (suggested a couple of moves previously by Malinor) relieves the pin on our Knight (though it still won't be free to move whilst Black threatens ...d2+ if we move it), gives our King more elbowroom and gains space on the board, discouraging Black from playing ...f5 or ...h5. h4 gets a head start on advancing the pawn that will become passed when we kill Black's h-pawn. I think that both are worth some consideration.
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Hm... I've just found out that something I thought was not viable for me still is. I will double check it, but nothing to worry. I'll make the move within the next two hours.
On a side note. It blows my mind that this thread has almost outgrown the Magic the Gathering Online one.
Really thanks a lot guys. It's a very nice feeling and makes me feel like I want to do more.
Edit: It's been a while since we had three full pages of convo on a single move from opening to closing.
And on a side note again - I'm an idiot. About the move I've just been checking.
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Okay the move is posted, stuff got updated.
Round on the go.
I actually thought of the legitimacy of Ke8 a bit more before realizing that after that even something as simple as g4 would ensure a draw for white.
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Avaryroro wrote:
Zen5034 wrote:
garbanzo wrote:
Welcome to the game, guys. 
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On January 20 2012 12:44 Ng5 wrote:
Okay the move is posted, stuff got updated.
Round on the go.
I actually thought of the legitimacy of Ke8 a bit more before realizing that after that even something as simple as g4 would ensure a draw for white. As a matter of fact, we'd just been coming around to that very move (g4 in response to ...Ke8). That's what my last post was about.
In any case, this move makes our next decision easy, at least. 30. Ke1.
+ Show Spoiler [rationale] +We've pushed off this move as long as we can: now it's time to make it. Our Bishop is overloaded--he can't defend both our Rook and our Knight. If we don't add a defender to the Knight (or move the Rook, technically) Black threatens to play 30...RxN (31. BxR KxR). So it's time to play Ke1.
Defending the Knight serves another purpose as well: it paves the way for d6, chasing the Bishop back. If Black had played 29...Ke8 instead of ...Kd8, this wouldn't matter so much to him as the Bishop would have a good square to go to in d8, but right now, the e7 Bishop really has nowhere good to go to if we play d6. For that reason, I expect Black to respond with 30...Bxa3. After that, we can take Black's h-pawn to secure our continuing material advantage and a passed h-pawn which is not so easy for Black to defend. I'm happy with our position here.
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On January 20 2012 13:07 SheaR619 wrote:
30. d6 30...BxP 31. BxB RxN
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I think this endgame is very nice as it's exchanging threats for each other at every single move and there's a lot of small delicacies to the situation.
It's also nice because in the long run it's an entirely different experience like what the 960 is likely to going to be. This turned into and endgame-ish position very early on, where concreteness and sharp exact and deep evaluation is needed.
While in 960 you have no opening books and you cannot prepare for everything right in the opening. You have to leave more things up to your gut, use more general ideas and build a position to your own strengths from scratches.
I can't wait to do analysis for that one to be honest.
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By the way, Ng5, out of curiosity, and if it's safe for you to say at this point, of course, what would you have played in response to 29. Ke1?
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In the near future, we're going to have to give some serious attention to Black's threat to + Show Spoiler +plant a Bishop on the a7-g1 diagonal, whether through ...Bc5 (once our Rook leaves the c-file) or through ...f5, ...Bf6, ...Bd4. The immediate threat of that is ...Ra1+, with mate to follow. I looked at what happens if we ignore that threat until it's a move away, and it didn't look pretty...
Right now I'm thinking our plan is + Show Spoiler +to just nip out and grab the h-pawn, then light out for home as fast as we can with Rh8+, Rb8. I think that gives us just enough time to meet the threat of ...Ra1+ with Rb1.
More analysis required, probably.
edit: The above plan doesn't work if + Show Spoiler +Black takes the 30...f5 route.
edit 2: well, maybe it does work, sort of. Anyway, get analyzing!
edit 3: OK, I missed something obvious. The + Show Spoiler + plan I described for Black not only doesn't threaten us, it loses the game for Black instantly + Show Spoiler +because we can meet ...Bd4 with Bg5+.
So in short, at the moment, I think we're OK.
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On January 20 2012 11:26 qrs wrote:OK, about the next move. Now that we've played 29. Rc7+, Ng5 has only two legal options 29...Kd8 or 29...Ke8. Originally, I thought + Show Spoiler +that in either case, our best response was probably 30. Ke1. The purpose of that move is to defend the Knight, after which we can play d6 to drive away the Black Bishop (without Ke1, we can't play this because of ...BxP BxB RxN), and then kill the Black h-pawn. However, I've had a change of thinking: + Show Spoiler +If Black plays 29...Kd8, I still think that we need to play 30. Ke1, because Black is immediately threatening to win a piece by removing the guard of our Rook: ...RxN BxN KxR. To guard against this, we need our King defending the Knight. However, if Black plays 29...Ke8, I'm no longer sure that we should respond with 30. Ke1. A theme of this game recently has been the waiting game that we're playing with Black about the Bishop on e7: he wants to move it, to get it active, and we want him to move it so that we can go kill his pawns. In that light, 30. Ke1, 31. d6 would be spending two moves to force Black to move a Bishop that he wants to move anyway. Maybe we can put that time to better use in a different way. I think 30. g4 and 30. h4 are both worth looking into. g4 (suggested a couple of moves previously by Malinor) relieves the pin on our Knight (though it still won't be free to move whilst Black threatens ...d2+ if we move it), gives our King more elbowroom and gains space on the board, discouraging Black from playing ...f5 or ...h5. h4 gets a head start on advancing the pawn that will become passed when we kill Black's h-pawn. I think that both are worth some consideration.
+ Show Spoiler +I'm super noob. Can you explain how g4 relieves a pin on our knight?
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On January 20 2012 14:19 GenesisX wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2012 11:26 qrs wrote:OK, about the next move. Now that we've played 29. Rc7+, Ng5 has only two legal options 29...Kd8 or 29...Ke8. Originally, I thought + Show Spoiler +that in either case, our best response was probably 30. Ke1. The purpose of that move is to defend the Knight, after which we can play d6 to drive away the Black Bishop (without Ke1, we can't play this because of ...BxP BxB RxN), and then kill the Black h-pawn. However, I've had a change of thinking: + Show Spoiler +If Black plays 29...Kd8, I still think that we need to play 30. Ke1, because Black is immediately threatening to win a piece by removing the guard of our Rook: ...RxN BxN KxR. To guard against this, we need our King defending the Knight. However, if Black plays 29...Ke8, I'm no longer sure that we should respond with 30. Ke1. A theme of this game recently has been the waiting game that we're playing with Black about the Bishop on e7: he wants to move it, to get it active, and we want him to move it so that we can go kill his pawns. In that light, 30. Ke1, 31. d6 would be spending two moves to force Black to move a Bishop that he wants to move anyway. Maybe we can put that time to better use in a different way. I think 30. g4 and 30. h4 are both worth looking into. g4 (suggested a couple of moves previously by Malinor) relieves the pin on our Knight (though it still won't be free to move whilst Black threatens ...d2+ if we move it), gives our King more elbowroom and gains space on the board, discouraging Black from playing ...f5 or ...h5. h4 gets a head start on advancing the pawn that will become passed when we kill Black's h-pawn. I think that both are worth some consideration. + Show Spoiler +I'm super noob. Can you explain how g4 relieves a pin on our knight? + Show Spoiler +If the Knight moved, g2 would be exposed to capture from Black's Rook. Doesn't make a difference now, but might down the line.
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At first I was thinking very heavily of Bd8. It might not look much when you have moves like Bxa3, but the overall situation was in some ways verifying it. As opposed to having the bishop on a3 from where the only pressuring move could have been Bb4 later I could have just followed up with Bxa5 in many ways. Things like Re2+ and different binds by the bishops gave more than enough play for black I think. In some of sub-lines white might even be forced to sacrifice an exchange for the d3 pawn, which I think again leads into a completely new forest. I don't want to reveal my evaluations for the B+N vs B+R where the bishops are of different square-colour yet, but it's very tricky and worth a study in itself.
There were, however a few lines that I was not completely satisfied with and would have spent more hours on analyzing should you have chosen Ke1.
My other idea was simple Rxa3. Why the rook? Well the bishop would move again anyway, why bring him to the altar. If I keep him at bay at e7 I still have more options. I would still have Bb4 and Bd8 both as a possibility for later, the general structure wouldn't change much, so it would still on white to form a plan and on me to put holes into it. Plus as icing on the cake after Ke1 Rxa3 Rc7+ I'm even blocking the maneuverability of the rook by the e7 bishop. All of a sudden white doesn't have immediate targets. d3 is protected now by an extra rook and h7 is a little out of reach without and need pressure on black whether he (I) wants to play Bxa3. I also found many particular lines that ended up with black having the advantage and a shot at a won endgame.
All in all it would have been either Rxa3 or Bd8. One of the two, but I might have spent a lot of time with checking Bd8 just to be sure.
The sole reason I double checked Ke8 in the last minute because after Rxa3 in some lines black tucks his king away to g6 by dancing around the e7 bishop and the f6 pawn. I wanted to check if I can initiate the same and whether it's worth it. But immediate g4 pretty much ices it down because I would have had no Rxa3 anymore due to d6 and at least a solid draw for white,and Ra7 followed by a6 becomes too strong of a threat. g4 in itself is not even a good move, it doesn't even threat anything - it does one sole thing. It give white a tempo and lets black screw up. Black has to move something and nothing is constructive, so black can only make his position worse. No matter what black moves it would only make Ra7 stronger or loses some material due to immediate tactics. Maybe the most is playing Bxa3 and later Bb4, exchange minor pieces and ending up in a drawn rook endgame. Not that fun. Another thing is after Ke8 immediate d6 draws in similar manners and even easier if you guys only go for a draw.
g4 is a nice find because it's a very delicate move. I was once accused of cheating by some Russian GM on ICC because I found something like that and he didn't get his perpetual draw in the end. He just played awfully all game, but hey... Who am I to say that.
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Hope it's not too tedious and was good enough for reasoning for you.
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EPT
