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Positional evaluation

Positional evaluation

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W
Angler

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All of the pieces remain on the board, and black is on move, yet white already has an advantage. How do you explain why?




(The position was taken from a blitz game I played this morning.)


Here's the whole game:

Wulebgr (1679) - Mach2speedy (1739) [A40]
Rated game, 5m + 0s Main Playing Hall, 06.06.2006
1.d4 e6 2.c4 b6 3.Nf3 Bb7 4.g3 g6 5.Bg2 Bg7 6.Nc3 Ne7 7.e4 d6 8.0–0 Nd7 9.Be3 a6 10.a3 0–0 11.Rc1 h6 12.b4 Kh7 13.Qd2 Ng8 14.Rfd1 f5 15.e5 d5 16.cxd5 exd5 17.Ne2 Rc8 18.Nf4 Qe7 19.e6 Ndf6 20.Ne5 Ne4 21.Bxe4 dxe4 22.Nexg6 Qf6 23.Nxf8+ Rxf8 24.d5 Rd8 25.Nh5 Qe7 26.Nxg7 Qxg7 27.Qd4 Qe7 28.Qe5 Kg6 29.Rxc7 1–0

F
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London

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Originally posted by Wulebgr
All of the pieces remain on the board, and black is on move, yet white already has an advantage. How do you explain why?

[fen]r2q1rn1/1bpn1pbk/pp1pp1pp/8/1PPPP3/P1N1BNP1/3Q1PBP/2RR2K1 b - - 0 14[/fen]


(The position was taken from a blitz game I played this morning.)
I couldn't give you a major reason like white has a forced mate, but black appears to have lost a tempo moving his knight back to g8 after castling, as well as losing tempo apparently fiddling about with his king, whilst white has a strong kingside and much more developed pieces.

= the perpective from 1200.

M

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Space. But I wouldn't over-estimate the 'advantage'. Black hasn't got real weaknesses (yet).

RN
RHP Prophet

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Originally posted by Wulebgr
All of the pieces remain on the board, and black is on move, yet white already has an advantage. How do you explain why?

[fen]r2q1rn1/1bpn1pbk/pp1pp1pp/8/1PPPP3/P1N1BNP1/3Q1PBP/2RR2K1 b - - 0 14[/fen]


(The position was taken from a blitz game I played this morning.)
I'm not sure what you're looking for, but after a quick glance.

White has a tremendous space advantage and much more active pieces.

Black is cramped and defensive and doesn't really have any good moves. Most pawn moves look like they seal up black bishops even more than they already are.

o
onyx2007

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white has a forced mate in 13...

M

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Originally posted by Red Night
I'm not sure what you're looking for, but after a quick glance.

White has a tremendous space advantage and much more active pieces.

Black is cramped and defensive and doesn't really have any good moves. Most pawn moves look like they seal up black bishops even more than they already are.
Ne7 looks good. White hasn't an easy way to open the game. Later on black could follow on with f5 and have something started for himself. By which I don't want to claim black is any better.

z

127.0.0.1

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White has a spacial plus and control of the center. As often happens in such cases, white also has more mobility for his pieces.

W
Angler

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Originally posted by onyx2006
white has a forced mate in 13...
Elucidate please.

CK
bob

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Black is better. Whites 'advantages' are only ghosts and are all disadvantages when exmained properly

W
Angler

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Originally posted by zebano
White has a spacial plus and control of the center. As often happens in such cases, white also has more mobility for his pieces.
Mobilty seems the key to me, but the fuzzy word development keeps entering my head, as it is used in so many books. White's greater mobility stems from having more space, and reveals why space is an advantage.

(I don't have the answer, but thought the position might generate some productive discussion. Fritz 9 gives white an advantage of slightly more than 1/2 pawn. But Fritz is mute when it comes to explaining the positional advantages.)

W
Angler

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Originally posted by Caro Kann
Black is better. Whites 'advantages' are only ghosts and are all disadvantages when exmained properly
But the pawn remains on c7 (instead of its proper square). 😉

M

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Originally posted by Wulebgr
But the pawn remains on c7 (instead of its proper square). 😉
" ..... instead of its proper square." Which is?

S

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hmmmm...This is what i've got....


1) White has a protected blockade of pawns controling central squares, which give him space (by cramping blacks)

and also, may give white a little edge in an endgame (pawns closer to promotion)

2) White on the whole, has more active pieces.

Blacks bishops do not have full control of nice long diagonals, so they are not *currently* doing much.

Black has one nicely placed Knight, and the a terribly placed one elsewhere (moving that one to a better square costs tempo)

And Blacks Rooks are not making themselves useful either.

Now if you compare that to whites postion: -

White has both Knights controling central Squares, his rooks are controling the central files, etc.

3) Seeing as White has more space, and active peices its quite clear that white will be the one to call the shots, Blacks postion is and rather passive, which of course means Black will be forced to play defencivly.

4) white has no threats to worry about, therefore with the king very safe white can start thinking about attacking.

and try and crack that nut open.

On saying this however, I'd say Black doesn't have too much to worry about -- that extra tempo(or tempi) white has probably won't be sufficient to claim a win, or even, a major advantage.

T

London

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Re advantages. White certainly has a space advantage, but black is compact, his king is safe, and some people like playing the Hippopotamus Defence. I think white's real advantage in these games is to do with flexibility; he can respond to black's pawn breaks in ways that make black's position look silly. For instance, if black breaks ...c5, white can respond with d5 and get a Benoni where ...b6 with ...Bb7 is just waste of two tempi.

RN
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Originally posted by Mephisto2
Ne7 looks good. White hasn't an easy way to open the game. Later on black could follow on with f5 and have something started for himself. By which I don't want to claim black is any better.
I probably over stated the case when I said "any" good moves. I probably meant to say many and was speaking in the context of black bottling up his own bishops.

however, after looking at the position for another 60 seconds, I agree with you that Ne7 looks like the most promising continuation for Black. Of course, that wasn't the question and I really haven't done any analysis on the position.

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