17...a4
I sincerely feel that the b3 pawn will be a problem in the engame for me...and I feel I should eliminate this threat before I go on to pin White's bishop in later moves.
With the queen pinned...Black has a stronger advantage against White.
Other possible moves:
17...Qe5+ As I said I wanted to get rid of the endgame threat.
18.Bb5
I don't exactly know what you're typing about when you say you've got my queen pinned. She's not pinned. In fact, I could slide her out onto your side of the board, skoootch her right up in there shoulder-to-shoulder between your knight and your bishop and let her play footsie with your rookman just to prove that has plenty of liberty to go where she pleases. But I'm not going to. Because then you'd castle, and we wouldn't want to see you castle now, would we?
Instead I'm applying rear-end pressure on your a4 pawn.
🙂 Game 672803 🙂
19.Be2
Uh oh... I've left g2 vulnerable. If you hadn't have put me in check, my next move wouldn't have been so forced, but I figured, hey, might as well take a chance and see what you'd do next. You had options. You could easily have castled or taken b3. Observing that the overall table balance is fairly equalivalent here, I used up a turn and took a chance with my bishop. Well at least now he's out of the pocket giving me king-side castle mobility. In the next few it's probably gonna be all about my pawns, poor little pawn buddies. They're sitting ducks. 😲
20.Nc4
I'm going to be playing nearly all defense for a while, as my offensive maneuvering is mostly blockaded. Kf1 was an option for me, but it eliminates my ability to castle in return. However, my first instinct was to threaten black's queen with the horseman. Plus, the knight move provides a measure of defense creating a protective shield for my queen and perhaps also may slow black's development.