I recently played an interesting thematic correspondence game, so I decided to showcase it. It was Sicilian defense, Moscow variation, I played White.
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bb5+ Bd7 4. Bxd7+ Qxd7 5. c4 - Maroczy bind
5. … Nc6 6. Nc3 e6 7. O-O Nf6 8. d4 O-O-O – it always surprises me when Black in Sicilian castles queenside.
9. a3 cxd4 10. Nxd4 d5 - important moment! This is a very typical move when playing against Maroczy bind, designed to destroy White’s center. It succeeds with that goal, but it’s the White who takes advantage of the opened lines.
11. cxd5 exd5 12. Nxc6 Qxc6 13. exd5 Nxd5 14. Qg4+
14. … Kb8 – computer suggests 14. …Qe6 15. Qf3 Qf6 with estimate 0.96, now after 15. Nd5 it’s 2.49. 15. … Qxd5 16. Bf4+ Ka8 17. Rad1
17. … Qa5 18. Rxd8+ Qxd8 19. Rd1 Qe8 20. Bc7!
20. … Be7 21. Qxg7 b6 – it makes things worse
22. Qe5 Kb7 23. Re1
23. … Bf6 24. Qxe8 Rxe8 25. Rxe8 Kxc7 26. Rf8 Bxb2 27. Rxf7+
27. Rxf7+ Kb8 28. a4 h6 29. g4 Bc1 30. h4 a6 31. Rf5 Kb7 32. g5 hxg5 33. hxg5 Kc6 34. g6 – Black resigned ( 34. … Bb2 35. Rf7 ).
January 14, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Well played, but you need to start playing against stronger opponents
January 14, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Aziridine – thanks. His rating was only 50 lower than mine at the moment, he actually plays better in another game that we have now. Maybe the difference is that he is playing 30 games, I play only 9. I choose opponents in +-150 range, probably I should decrease the minus part. Sometimes in thematic games, when people play some obscure lines, I wish I set opponent’s rating +200, than maybe I would get normal continuation.
January 14, 2009 at 8:31 pm
On the other hand, it’s important to learn what to do when your opponent plays “obscure sidelines” – often such moves have some sort of flaw which, if you find it, will enhance your understanding of the opening. Your game here was a good example – Black was swiftly punished for neglecting the safety of his king.
January 15, 2009 at 10:17 am
RollingPawns, you executed that well. But I have to say that for my money, Black’s opening falls into the dogsh*t variety, it almost handles itself for White.
January 15, 2009 at 10:18 am
I would have liked to see the typical g6 and Bg7 versus the Maroczy as I could stand to learn something from that, although your insight on the present game was quite useful.
January 15, 2009 at 11:29 am
Aziridine – interesting point about sidelines. I am playing a game right now (I am white, Marshall attack), where my opponent choose sideline played in 6% of the games. It looked weird, I didn’t know it was played at all, but it was. Anyway, I finally get along Nunn’s game, then do new move, few moves later win a pawn and look happily forward to the endgame. Suddenly, I miss tactical strike, forgetting that I am still in the middlegame, my kingside is not defended and pieces are undeveloped (as usual for White in Marshall). So, would he play regular line, it will not happen and I wouldn’t get a useful lesson.
LinuxguyOnFICS – yeah, the idea of castling queenside and d5 was strange, same d5 would be much better after castling kingside. In my 2 OTB games with this variation both opponents were essentially higher rated and played g6, Bg7.
January 15, 2009 at 11:57 am
I’ve learned some things about chess recently. First of all, when partially sick I dropped a whole bunch of rating points, and now I understand why I did.
First of all, separate chess game into two parts. First part is the opening where the other guy attempts to throw all his novelties at you, and you may have a lost game right there.
Second part is the ’struggle’ as Lasker called it. You can win a losing position if you play ‘harder’ than your opponent.
When defending, it’s easy to not make mistakes because everything you do is motivated by stopping the other guy.
Attacking is when the blunders occur because you are not only attacking but (supposedly) defending. So it’s dual-duty on your mental resources.
When I was under the weather, I simply did not have the energy to execute the attacking part correctly because it requires more energy and resourcefulness than defending or simply developing.
January 15, 2009 at 12:10 pm
In that game above it would have taken 4 moves to secure his position before d5. Kb8, Ka8, Be7 and Rae8. By then White has played a3, b4, b5, which really only requires two tempos as his knight must move after the third one. Therefore, dumb opening. hehe.
January 15, 2009 at 2:07 pm
LinuxguyOnFICS – yeah, novelties start from the choice of the opening, a few times I lost OTB in the last several months it was because my opponent played his favorite, but not/almost not played by me, opening. I try now to avoid that by all means, by switching it to my variations (like I did with Moscow Maroczy against expected Dragon) or by choosing the opening/variation that my opponent doesn’t expect and knows no more than me (like choosing less known Be7 against Evans or playing Petrov against Scotch game lover). So far it worked really well.
Attacking is not easy, I agree, I have a problem with finding the decisive move, or I find it, but not execute.
It will take only one tempo, as a3 was already played (with the same goal, as you suggested), White’s attack develops faster than Black’s. Though, once I played against Sicilian (kind of closed), he castled queenside and despite opening “b” line by b4, bxc5, I got under horrific attack on the kingside ( see my post “Reflecting on the last tournament” in July 2008 if interested), and survived by miracle, so it depends.
January 15, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Petrov can transpose into Scotch game. Scotch game is really hard to avoid. I have the most fits against …Qh4, and not many Black players play that line, most go for Bc5, which is no problems. Bb4..BxNc3 is much more of a PIA than Bc5.
Funny thing is I seem to know when a pawn sac is good or bad compared to my opponents, but you have to calculate the correct kingside attack in response, most can’t and even I usually flub it over the board.
I’ll have to get a blog up and post a couple when I get a chance. If I breakthrough consistently on attacking the king, I think I will break through to a new rating level. My problem is I play when I’m tired or just whenever at whatever time-control, which I shouldn’t do.
January 15, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I lost against center-counter recently at a tournament (couple months back) where the guy played 0-0-0, right at the precise moment to catch me blindsided. Then sure enough he got the mating threats on the h-file with Qh6, etc, and did in fact win (I missed a pin against my queen in the center).
It worked though mainly because of novelty and I was playing wrong for that to happen, got ahead of myself. In the Sicilian, it’s much more dangerous to do that for Black, though.
January 16, 2009 at 7:00 am
Not my type of opening, especially not from the black side. I play sometimes the sicilian aswell (very rare i must admit) and i always 0-0. Guess that’s because i learned the paulsen variation as first.
But you played well, tortured your opponent’s bad move. Well done!
January 16, 2009 at 9:00 am
Sicilian Paulsen is a great opening! That early Bb4 and/or Queen coming out to a5 or b6 can give White fits! It’s that it happens so soon in White’s development, that is what makes it tough to deal with.
I should go back and study my openings. :-/
January 16, 2009 at 9:01 am
I play French Def. and QGD as Black.
January 16, 2009 at 1:15 pm
LinuxguyOnFICS – Scandinavian could be really dangerous and 0-0-0 is natural there. I lost a couple of OTB games against it, see my posts with “tragic” titles
. I lost against e6, Qb6, Bc5 too, though I won a few days ago a correspondence game against “Pin variation” – 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4, line 6. e5 Qc7 7. exf6 …
chesstiger – thanks. I play e4, I think it’s good for me, so have to deal with Sicilian, last tournament – 2 out of 3 against e4. I played Accelerated Dragon before with Black, didn’t have much success, though looks like my type of play, dynamic, not too sharp, not too positional. I switched to e5, Ruy is good, funny that 3 last games people didn’t play it against e5.
January 17, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I should study Scandinavian as it is a favorite response of some club players.
The Bc5 line is tricky. I lost a tournament game, then studied the theory from a Russian openings encyclopedia. My next game was against that opening and I brilliantly refuted the opponent’s move from the sac I had learned in the book, namely Re1 and d5 pawn sac before he castled.
I need to look at Bb4, though. Tournament players can know that White has little practical exp. against it.
January 17, 2009 at 9:59 pm
Interesting that I drew in Scandinavian against almost 300 higher rated player and lost to two lower rated than me, they both played Portuguese variation.
Just to be sure, Qb6/Bc5 and Bb4 it was about Sicilian. I won against Bb4 mostly because it was correspondence game and I could use DB, I played it for the first time and it looks very sharp, though by playing the right moves White can get advantage.
January 18, 2009 at 12:02 am
Rollingpawns, if you wanna seed some bad @ss analysis by Crafty for busting the Scandinavian Bg4 variation, check this out. Keep in mind than the b7/a6 diagonal is weak for Black:
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 Bg4 6. h3 Bh5 7. g4 Bg6
8. Ne5 e6 9. Bg2 c6 10. h4 Be4 11. Bxe4 Nxe4 12. Qf3 Nd6 13. Bg5 Na6 14.
O-O-O Nb4 15. Ne4 Qc7 16. Nc5 Nxa2+ 17. Kb1 Nb4 18. Rhe1 Nd5 19. c4 Ne7 20.
h5 h6 21. Bf4 Nec8 22. Ng6 fxg6 23. Nxe6 Qf7 24. Ng5+ Qe7 25. Rxe7+ Bxe7
26. Ne6 g5 27. Be5 Rf8 28. Nxf8 Bxf8 29. d5 c5 30. Re1 Be7 31. Bxd6 Nxd6
32. Qe3 O-O-O 33. Qxc5+ Kd7 34. Qxa7
*
I wouldn’t want to play that as Black after seeing all of that!
January 18, 2009 at 12:06 am
Should say a8/b7/c6 diagonal is weak.
Little did I know that the key to busting it is grabbing initiative on the k-side and then castling q-side. His king seemingly has nowhere to go!
January 18, 2009 at 6:19 pm
LinuxguyOnFICS – thanks! Yeah, this line – g4, Ne5, etc. has good stats on http://www.365chess.com, it really takes initiative from Black.
January 19, 2009 at 3:45 pm
I got tired of French Def., so looked at play a Nimzovich Defense opening a little bit at this with Crafty, then decided to give it a whirl.
[Event "ICS rated standard match"]
[Site "freechess.org"]
[Date "2009.01.19"]
[Round "-"]
[White "mrKlovesfish"]
[Black "LinuxGuy"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1660"]
[BlackElo "1750"]
[TimeControl "1200"]
1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. Ne2 f6 5. f4 fxe5 6. fxe5 e6 7. Ng3 Bg6 8.
Be3 Nge7 9. Bd3 Qd7 10. Nd2 O-O-O 11. Bxg6 hxg6 12. Nb3 Nf5 13. Nxf5 gxf5
14. Qd2 Be7 15. O-O-O Rh5 16. a3 g5 17. g3 Rdh8 18. Nc5 Bxc5 19. dxc5 g4
20. Kb1 Qh7 21. b4 Rxh2 22. Rxh2 Qxh2 23. Qxh2 Rxh2 24. Bf4 a6 25. Kb2 Re2
26. Kc3 Nxe5 27. Bxe5 Rxe5 28. Rh1 Kd7 29. Rd1 Re3+ 30. Rd3 Rxd3+ 31. cxd3
e5 32. Kd2 c6 33. Ke3 Ke6 34. d4 exd4+ 35. Kxd4 Kf6 36. Kd3 Ke5 37. Ke3 d4+
38. Kd3 Kd5 39. Kd2 Ke4 40. Ke2 d3+ 41. Kf2 d2 42. Ke2 d1=Q+ 43. Kxd1 Kf3
44. Ke1 Kxg3 45. Kf1 f4 46. Kg1 f3 47. Kf1 f2 48. a4 Kf3 49. b5 axb5 50.
axb5 g3 51. bxc6 g2#
{mrKlovesfish checkmated} 0-1
8… Qh4
18. Nc5??
19. Nxe, Bd4 20. Nf3 (attacking the Queen).
21. Bb1, Rh3 22. Qf2 d4! with 23..Rd8 24…Rd5 and Rxp to follow
Here is the 3. exd line with Crafty analysis (I don’t let Crafty play 0-0-0 because I think it’s flawed). White gets the bishop pair here (if White knows to play this well).
[Event "?"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "?"]
[Round "-"]
[White "?"]
[Black "?"]
[Result "*"]
1. e4 Nc6 2. d4 d5 3. exd5 Qxd5 4. Nf3 Bg4 5. Be2 e6 6. O-O Nf6 7. c4 Qd7
8. Nc3 Be7 9. d5 exd5 10. cxd5 Bxf3 11. Bxf3 Ne5 12. Bf4 Ng6 13. Be3 O-O
14. Re1 Rfe8 15. Qb3
*
I read the start of Dvoretsky’s Secrets of Chess Tactics again. It surprised me because he teaches that it’s not that we don’t calculate far enough ahead, it’s the we miss the “hidden” tactical ideas (that are often shallow in depth of calculation).
January 19, 2009 at 4:17 pm
It’s not even listed as a main opening on that 365 database site, someone would have to know the ECO code for it, let alone the name. hehe. That’s a big point in it’s appeal, nobody is really “gunning” for this opening.
One of the versions of Crafty or XBoard engine loved to play that opening as Black, and beat me every time with it.
January 19, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Dvoretsky is actually right.
My problem isn’t that I can’t visualize a simple 10 move combination DEEP, since I have been able to do that even at 15 0 time controls, not a problem.
My problem is that I don’t look WIDE at enough side variations. I see that he also later on goes into the importance of quickly pruning off the useless variations.
January 19, 2009 at 5:30 pm
LinuxguyOnFICS – On 365 site you don’t have to know ECO code, just choose the moves by mouse. d4 is not the best for White, in 2 correspondence games I played 2. Nf3 and 2. Nc3, with 1st becoming Scandinavian and 2nd – Vienna game. But I agree, that it can have some effect.
Dvoretsky is right, I just calculated 2 lines 6 moves deep, but didn’t notice that on the 2nd move my opponent has a check instead of just moving away. It doesn’t lose, but seriously changes the line.
You look definitely ready to have a chess blog, why don’t you create it? You can do it on wordpress or if it’s important for you to be able to publish the whole game – on blogspot.
January 19, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Yeah, even in that game I was worried that he might play 2.Nf3, which seemed good for White once I was on the Black side of things.
Yeah, I’ll try not to litter your site. I could make a WordPress blog and add some links. How come blogspot would be better for whole games?
Thanks for the tip on 365.
Dvoretsky mentions that the creative idea is often hidden. One example, like the second one in the book or third, it involves sacking a knight to fork rook on a8 and also the f7 square. Once rook moves to a7, checking the king on f7 x-rays the rook on a7. It all started with trading queens on e7 in order to bring the king to e7 where f7 could be undefendable.
The combination continued after that because, of course, Black didn’t accept the knight sac on d5 to begin with because of that, and but White draws the king out anyhow with Nc7+ and e5 pawn sac. I’m just saying this off the top of my head because I still remember it.
Strange
January 19, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Blogspot has some plug-in, that allows you to put java applet with playable game, I think.
, on your own blog hopefully it will be more, though it’s not that easy.
On wordpress you can put only static image, I do snapshots from Babaschess. You can comment as much as you want, I like your comments. I just thought that when you prepare your post, you do some useful thinking, and comments are often useful too, give you ideas or another point of view, or new information. Here I am the only person that comments on your comments
January 25, 2009 at 5:53 pm
On blogspot one can replayable games with chessflash while on wordpress one can only use replay chessgame when one host one own blog on your own domain.