TL Chess Match 4 - Page 55

Just out of curiosity (I voted for Nbd2) is there any reason Bd2 is bad?

There is a tendency these days to favor bishops more than knights. Virtually all of the arguments given for Nbd2 tend toward some argument about not wanting to give up a bishop for a knight. When I play blitz, the weaker opponents I play will take literally every opportunity to trade their knight for a bishop, even if there's no real thought or reasoning behind it. They think it wins material.

I think it's really a prejudice, because the strength of bishop vs. knight depends entirely on the position, ie. whether it is open or closed, the colors the central pieces occupy, etc. This game still has the potential for either.

Examples:

Some interesting lines in the unconventional bb4 kf1, which now that I look at the complexities would have been another really cool novelty to spring on NG5. IT can be playable in structures like these when the a6 f1 diagonal is controlled as we do now . But I would probably turn blue in the face explaining why this is playable, based solely on aesthetic impression the move makes ( splitting the rooks , losing the castle etc . However it would combine with h4 ng5 ideas, and pushing the h pawn to h5 if possible , and lifting the rook to say rh4 or rh3 to rg3. Some really interesting positions arise from this, some of this I will provide below.
I never would have talked anybody into this though, no matter how much analysis I provided. Here are some interesting ideas to me at least . bb4 kf1? d5 qa4 winning . bb4 kf1 0-0 d5 winning. taking that into account bb4 kf1? qe7(probably best or ba5) qc2 f5 h4 0-0 qc4+ kh8 bg5 nxb hxg5 opening the h file with a nice attack .
Due to the semi-closed nature of the board The lines appear to keep the initiative for white, while avoiding any exchanges . For instance some other examples . Bb4 Kf1?! qe7 qc2 f5 (hard to find a better move than this for black here , if d5 bxc6 wins) h4 ba5 nc3 nb4 qe2 c6 bc4 d5 exd e.p. nxd qxq kxq bb3 and from here if black tries nd3 white ends up better after bg5 which is a long line in itself .
Big breath ... here we go .... nd3 bg5+ ke8 (kd7 leads to another strong position for white ) rd1 nxb2 re1+ ne4 nxn bxr nd6+ kd7 nf7 re8 nxbe1 b6 ne5 +kc7 and we lift our rook to h3 with a winning game.

I see. I thought as a general rule it was nice to preserve a bishop rather than a knight because you can mate with 2 bishops, or 1 bishop 1 knight, but you can't mate with 2 knights. On the other hand, it's relatively rare to enter the end-game with 2 minors and nothing else I guess.

While I admittedly did not explicitly state that for my reasoning this turn, I have said, repeatedly, on previous turns that I think that the position is conducive to our bishops. I have also talked about eying a knight outpost based off the advanced pawn which was your excellent brainchild.
Still, I continue to believe that in this positionI would like to hold on to our bishop pair and give up a (singular) knight. I could be quite quite wrong, and that's fine. I think I've adequately shown that I've got no issue with being corrected.

With this line, Black has absolutely no initiative and all of his pieces are god awful. White also has a massive space advantage over black.
Apart from the line listed above, I found 8... f6 Qd3 Ng5 Nxg5 Nxg5 fxg5 a3 Ba5 b4 Bb6 Bxc6 and the black bishop is trapped and a4/5 will soon follow.

Yea I looked into this move, I felt it has potenital. But at the end, I decided to go with Nbd2, because Nbd2 seems safe, but Kf1 could work also. But I don't think most people will switch to this move though...

I am a weak player

Kf1doesn't seem good at all. The reference game was very much closed and white's queenside is almost completely developed.

In our current game, our queenside is completely undeveloped with black having strong knight post and bishop controlling a diagonal. Can't afford to further fall behind in tempo and allow black to strengthen his position. In addition, with the semiopen center, we want our H rook to develop on the F or E file and Kf1 makes it extremely difficult to do that

Along with the lines I posted in my last post I have been looking at others , and I just cannot seem to find a plan for black that is easy to play, but it should also be noted some of the plans for us can get pretty tricky if our rooks stay split, So someone was saying they found some games with this move ? . I was thinking I may have invented a new move in this position, guess not . I came up with it on my own though, trying to find moves NG5 may not be versed in . The last attempt qe2 passed us by .