Good play? Or lucky win?

Played this game on blitz, 5 0 controls




Opinion on play? It felt good. I'll try to put comments when I have more time.

Originally posted by Eladar
Played this game on blitz, 5 0 controls


[pgn][Event "RHP Blitz rated"]
[Site "www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2013.7.2"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Eladar"]

[Result "1-0"]

1. b2-b3 c7-c5 2. Bc1-b2 d7-d6 3. e2-e3 e7-e5 4. d2-d3 Bc8-e6 5. Ng1-e2 Nb8-c6 6. f2-f4 f7-f6 7. f4xe5 f6xe5 8. Ne2-g3 Ng8-h6 9. Bf1-e2 Qd8-d7 10. O-O O-O-O 11. Nb1-a3 a7-a6 12. Na3-c4 ...[text shortened]...

Opinion on play? It felt good. I'll try to put comments when I have more time.

Black's move ..d4?? was atrocious, but you did a good job punishing him. (Edit: although it looks like he also helped you a lot by running his K into the center as well.) Before that move, I thought black was better, mainly because your opening was so passive.

Instead of 20.Ng5+ this win looks easier. It's all with check.

“A good player is always lucky” -J.R.Capablanca

GP,

Are you sure that's a checkmate? Why can't white play Qf7? I'm sure black is still winning, it just gives the King some wiggle room after freeing the d7 square.

To tell you the truth, I didn't see the rooks control of the f file, beyond the f5 square. Thanks for opening my eyes. Hopefully I will think about that in the future.


Swiss,

When I saw your name on the first post I was sure I was in for much more than that! I thought for sure you were going to rip it apart.

Yes, 1.b3 is passive, but the up side is that I think I catch people off guard in blitz matches. They see the opening then think I'm even worse than I actually am. I've beaten at least 3 people rated 2000+ rhp on the blitz using 1.b3. I like not knowing their rating until after the game. If I actually knew their rating before the game, I'd probably give up much easier.

Having said that, I am sure that eventually I'll try out 1.e4 once I get a better grasp of the game from a strategic point of view. Once I know what I'm trying to achieve with my pawns and pieces I'm sure I'll understand what 1.e4 can really do.

Thanks for the quote Praxis. 😀

Now for a couple of comments on the game. Just because a move worked, doesn't mean it is good or made for a good reason. 😀

4.d3 I wasn't sure what to do. I figured this was safe and is a move I plan on making later anyhow. The downside is that I'm blocking my bishop, an issue that bugged me after making the move. If I had the choice to do again, I'd probably play Bb5 looking to trade my opponent's 'good' bishop since his pawns are on the black squares.

5.Ne2 This is a move that I learned from watching Smirnov's video on 1.b3, the purpose of the move is to make a quick f4 pawn push supported by the knight on e2. Nf3 would block the f pawn and e5 doesn't look like a square I can put my knight.

8.Ng3 I need to get my knight out of the way and g3 isn't bad. I'm planning on playing the knight to f5 after playing e4. Pawns on the light squares to support my bishop on b2.

14.Qd2 breaks the pin, bishop supported by rook, as well as bringing my queen to a diagonal that will allow it entrance into the queen's side for an attack on the king.

25.Nxc6 I could take with the bishop here, but decided that I wanted a5 for my queen. Besides I could bring my queen over with a and the bishop is in a great position to help with the attack.

18.Ne4 f5 doesn't work because of black's bishop, but I know if one square works, so does another and found that I hadn't played e4 yet!

20.Ng5 My queen is being attacked, but the check works. Don't want to retreat my queen and I even checked to make sure the g5 square was safe for my knight! I had a good chess day yesterday, my eyes were more active than normal.

23.Rxf5 Could have taken with the bishop, but I knew the recaptured piece would be pinned. Figured he'd capture with the bishop since he wasn't going to give me his queen. By capturing with the rook, I would have time to bring my a1 rook into play.

25.exd4 My favorite move of the game. I saw an instructive colle-zuke game on Rudel's site where the b2 bishop went back to its starting square to support an attack on the kingside, in the colle a1-h8 diagonal is often clogged! That's why I stopped playing it. I saw that two bishops would be very powerful if I could play b2 to c1. I've also figured out that once you move your queen, it no longer cuts off the same squares, so it is better to leave it be as long as possible to keep everything closed. Nothing more frustrating than thinking you have a guy cut off, simply to let him out after moving your queen! So no, I didn't just get lucky here trying to win a pawn and support my queen lol.

The ending kind of played itself.

Hi Eladar,

Nitpicker 😉

I said "win" not checkmate, but in that position it's the same thing.
Forcing your opponent to give up a Queen to give the King a bolt hole is winning.
After that you need look no further there will be ½ a dozen mates in there.
The position is resignable.

Doing it all with check is to me the easy way. Cleaner.

"When I give check I fear no one." Tartakower.

Here is a possible wrap up - there may be a quicker mate but it's the simplest.



"The more I study, the luckier I get." Kaparov.

Originally posted by Eladar
GP,

Are you sure that's a checkmate? Why can't white play Qf7? I'm sure black is still winning, it just gives the King some wiggle room after freeing the d7 square.

To tell you the truth, I didn't see the rooks control of the f file, beyond the f5 square. Thanks for opening my eyes. Hopefully I will think about that in the future.


Swiss,

Whe ...[text shortened]... I'm sure I'll understand what 1.e4 can really do.

Thanks for the quote Praxis. 😀

It was more than just 1.b3 that was passive. It was this whole setup:

...where nothing is even on the 4th rank. It's playable, but you are letting black do almost anything he wants. (It does have a psychological component: such openings bait certain people into over-aggressive attempts to 'refute' the opening. But if they simply play to maintain this:

...then you will find it difficult to do much of anything constructive. Playing this passively against a good, careful positional player is death.)

Would I have been OK then if I had played my normal 4.Bb5? My thought would have then been to play Ne2 followed by f4. With my bishop free, e2 would have been fine for my knight until I've develped my other pieces.

Thanks GP,

I'm amazed at how the variations you come up with actually work. The ones that I imagine don't seem to work as well as I imagined they would. 😀

Originally posted by Eladar
Would I have been OK then if I had played my normal 4.Bb5? My thought would have then been to play Ne2 followed by f4. With my bishop free, e2 would have been fine for my knight until I've develped my other pieces.

The more common move is 3.f4, which is the Bird-Larsen attack. Usually white holds off on Bb5 unless he can trade an N on c6, which works towards his goal of controlling e5.

Originally posted by SwissGambit
The more common move is 3.f4, which is the Bird-Larsen attack. Usually white holds off on Bb5 unless he can trade an N on c6, which works towards his goal of controlling e5.

Yah, I usually do play 3.f4, but GM Igor Smirnov suggested playing Ne2 in variations of 1.b3 on his youtube video. I don't know if he'd suggest playing it in this situation, but I was trying to use it as he described (playing f4).

He Eladar,

They will in time, the gelling process will kick in.

It's how good players see things. In blocks.
I'll sac a piece with a position in mind knowing that there will be a win in there.
The abilty to find it is often over-rated.
The ability to set it up, now that is what matters.

Inexperienced players won't sac the piece till they have analysed the
coming position right down to the checkmate.
Sometimes this is too far ahead for them so a perfectly sound piece sac is rejected.

I stopped looking after Bg6+. It's a clean win.

There will other mates lurking.
Dig out the postion and try and mate with that a1 Rook or even a Queen sac.
With all that junk around the Black King there may even be a smothered mate with the Knight.

I used to play with these dead postion on a board for hours looking for
cute mates, longer mates, I still do. It's all I ever did.

I can mate any King if I can get near them. It's what I am good at.
The rest I suck at but as long as the game is about checkmate I can
sniff one out.

I finally watched Smirnov's youtube on the variation that my opponent used (1.b3 video 2). It's the variation where white isn't supposed to play 3.e3, but 3.Nfb followed by 4.d4. Seems the GM agrees with Swiss! Imagine that! I was supposed to fight for the center. 😀

Hopefully I'll remember it for next time.

Perhaps the better move order should be 3.d4, he doesn't show the exact same move order in the video.