It felt like I was back in London
Tonight I played Grant, who is a good player but has told me that I am getting better faster than he is and that he will probably never catch me. I remembered that he played the London System, and before I brushed up on it I went to the Reno Chess Archives to make sure he was still playing it. Turns out he's been playing e4 and the Bb5 Sicilian, I feel much more vulnerable in this variation than in the London System so I just studied the Rossolimo Variation in preparation for Thursday's game.
When Grant showed up for some reason he decided to go back to d4 and his London System, he admitted after the game he hadn't played it in over a year and a half because he felt it was weak. I agree that it doesn't give White any advantage with accurate play by Black. He played it because he figured I wouldn't know about it, but I actually have looked at this line quite a bit because I've run into it online quite a few times.
Note: The actual game went 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 c5, immediately after the game I had my computer with me so we threw it in ChessBase to sort some things out and I used the move order below to get to the position in the game...
A nice way to go into this tournament. But I'm still pretty sure I'm going to get my ass kicked. I've been playing really well at the club though and that's a good indicator that it's time to go and learn some lessons the hard way.
When Grant showed up for some reason he decided to go back to d4 and his London System, he admitted after the game he hadn't played it in over a year and a half because he felt it was weak. I agree that it doesn't give White any advantage with accurate play by Black. He played it because he figured I wouldn't know about it, but I actually have looked at this line quite a bit because I've run into it online quite a few times.
Note: The actual game went 1.d4 d5 2.Nf3 Nf6 3.Bf4 c5, immediately after the game I had my computer with me so we threw it in ChessBase to sort some things out and I used the move order below to get to the position in the game...
A nice way to go into this tournament. But I'm still pretty sure I'm going to get my ass kicked. I've been playing really well at the club though and that's a good indicator that it's time to go and learn some lessons the hard way.
The Bible says "All men are created equal."
Maybe not...
first off - snowboarding kicks ass, it's dancing with the mountain, if you ever come to colorado, i'll take you up on the local hill, we'll have a blast.
second - i just wanna say i really dig your blog template, love the colors, it is just an aesthetically pleasing blog...
rock on....
Another question: how do you go about analyzing a game like this? Do you run it through Fritz’s “Blundercheck”? How do you get to all the variations, sub-varations, and sub-sub-variations you show? I’d really appreciate if you can give me some detailed pointers, I sure need them :) Thanks man!
So this is the real secret to moving up the rating scale? Bloody hellfire.
I never fail to be impressed with your commentary. Sometimes I think it is inevitable you'll hit 2200, but I've no clue what the difference between a 1990 and 2200 is.
(While reading over my shoulder, the Mascot pointed out the difference is 210, for which I appreciate his insight.)
"The ninth pawn move out of 15!...it sets up...a traditional pawn storm...These ideas may have gotten us to something like 13 pawn moves out of 19, but White ruins our fun with his next move."
Then later on the same page (17):
"The lesson: there may be games in which one should make only two pawn moves and develop a new piece with every move, but there are so many 'exceptions' that to take such a guideline to heart would merely limit one's strength as a player."
Now I am further than 210 points I am sure but I do not think that my play is this far off. Thank you very much for your kind words. I appreciate it.
The bishop sac is hardly even a sac. His rook has to sit there on b1 and I get three pawns. Also his king is very awkward. Three connected passed pawns that are advanced like this are worth a lot of material. The purpose of my play up until this point has been to establish a passed b pawn. Establishing multiple passed pawns on the queenside seemed to me like an even more consistent result of my strategy. The difference between your thought process and my thought process is "What can I do with the extra move I get when he captures my piece?" I get the extra move cxb2 and this is more than enough to justify the sacrifice of the lame light squared bishop.
As far as the annotation, I used to allow Fritz to annotate but I don't like that anymore. I find most of the strong alternatives during the game, sometimes Fritz can point out an idea to me but usually I initiate these variations and sort through them myself with Fritz's help to make sure I don't overlook any obvious (or more often hidden) tactics. Really just approaching the position with an open mind and trying out whatever moves seem even remotely consistent with the needs of the position. Also a lot of times Fritz will not understand a strategic idea for several moves so following the line a little bit to see how it changes its evaluation over time is very helpful.
Thanks also for the pointers on annotating. I used to think that the best way was to run an entire game through Fritz’s blundercheck and then add any personal annotations separately in Chessbase. From everything I’ve read lately, and from your feedback, it seems that it might be better to just enter the moves of a game into Chessbase and having the Kibitz engine run while doing so – and having it look at any variations I come up with while entering the game.