You structurally have two very bad pieces: your knight and your bishop. So first point: even when it seems that you are in a better position, I think it is not so obvious, because you cannot use these pieces to improve the situation. You definitely had the initative for some time, but that's all, unfortunately. we may ask to computers, but situation seems pretty even to me.
opening white diagonals would have been worth the try, even loosing one pawn, I think. for instance: instead of 27. ... Qd8f6 (bad because you had to come back), push e5 (I did not check the line, though) and the Bishop may come in h3 So you loose a pawn, but you get a bishop... Then, I have the impression you sometimes exchange too quickly. Finally, after the exchange of queens, you were OK, but you wasted a LOT of time with your Knight going back and forth. Why didn't you play h3 instead of 35. ... Na5? I could get the idea of that move, it only seems a waste of time.
This is quick analysis, I may have misunderstood things in this interesting game!
EDIT: did you fully check that 29. ... Rxf3 was not possible? because after Qxb7, it does not seem obvious for whites, and it goes pretty quick for the attack on the white king...
Hi EmLasker, as a former player of French defense this game was of some interest to me. so just let me offer some suggestions for the opening, if i may. The whole idea of French defense (the position that you reached was advanced variation) is to get white to advance his center pawns and then liquidate those pawns with ..f6 and ..c5, and we try to target these two central pawns as much as we can.
the first thing that i noticed was an unusual queen move 6...Qc7, this is not bad, but if you notice the queen is actually quite powerful on d8, therefore it may have been better to wait with the queen, although one could see that you were eager to castle queenside, however the normal move is ...Qb6, which combines an attack on the center with an attack on the b pawn, but i don't like it, as IM Ari Zeigler has stated, 'we wait with the queen'. And although it did not lose you the game, not by any manner of means, the consequence was that white was able to penetrate the position and force the exchange of your dark squared bishop a very valuable piece in French defence! The Kings knight was destined for f5 , in order to target the d4 pawn, which coupled with the dark squared bishop, the pawn on c5, the queen on b6, the knight on c6, perhaps a rook on c8, castle kingside and whites powerful center would be history.
If you play that variation against 1.d4, its well worth looking at the French defense, for you invite it by playing ..e6 - regards Robbie.
Haven't really looked at the game in question here,2 people already covered it that should suffice.But I did have a quick look at your games,out of curiosity.To 1.e4 you mostly reply 1...,c5 or 1....,e5 yet you allowed this 1.d4 opening to transpose into a french.Maybe that's where it went wrong.Have you played the french before?Very difficult to play if it doesn't suit you.
6. ... Qc7 was bad, but you actually had a very good position for most of the game.
21. ... g3 was a great move.
Did you look at 29. ... Rxf3? Once the queens were off your position seemed to go downhill.
I don't think the French Defence is the natural opening for you. The Sicilian or just 1. ... e5 would suit you better.
Originally posted by Fat LadyHi
6. ... Qc7 was bad, but you actually had a very good position for most of the game.
21. ... g3 was a great move.
Did you look at 29. ... Rxf3? Once the queens were off your position seemed to go downhill.
I don't think the French Defence is the natural opening for you. The Sicilian or just 1. ... e5 would suit you better.
Fat Lady sems to have sussed out your style in one game.
he's right.
Games explorer tells me you played e5 in aswer to 1.e4
31 times with a score of 55% in your favour.
You have played the black side of a Sicilain 10 times
logging a score of 60%
No French Defences.
Though you do have a 100% from 2 games playing The Fred as Black.
And this entertaining 14 mover is one of them.
Well, maybe i can answer too.
The first thing is that we both play quite fast (compared to the other games in the tournament). And since you were from round 1 & 2 the stronger player, i tried to concentrate on these games (at the opposite, i played D4A with less attention, and it was blunderland...).
I did notice, that i managed to "pass" some of the critical manoeuvers when we played several moves on the same day, not to say the same hour.
About the game itself, apart from the opening, which for me till 7.O-O is quite from the book, i regretted immediatly this Bf4. I does lead to nothing, i don't know where i got this fancy idea, and all these weird moves with my black bishop turning around the g pawn. I finally put it in Be3, where Bf4 would have been much more useful.
On the other hand, on the queenside i like my knight and a pawn advance, but as one examiner said, i let c4 to happen and f6, followed by e5 would have more or less destroy everything in my position. But with 2 rooks, the queen and the d6 pawn in the battle for queenside, i knew it was a promising very promising queenside.
I can say that these g,h pawns advance was a big pain for me on the kind side, but i also had the feeling you were very agressive and that i could maybe sustain the game with quiet defense, which i did later on the king side.
As Carlsen said "give me a knight on f8 and i will defend any position", well i'm white so i put it on f1, and kept my king in the stronghold.
At this moment i had only 2 concerns, dxc4 i was not very confortable with, and your queen. Like i said, 2 rooks and a queen on the same side, is too much powerful ! So i went for queen exchange.
To answer the suggestion, 29.Rxf3 is not good at all because you loose the knight after Qxb7, Qa8, space for the king it very small.
And my knight is a good defender, you are forced to loose material on kingside if you try to force things.
In fact this Nc6 <--> Na5 <--> Nc4 pendulum may be criticized but it was really annoying me, same remark that apply for myself, the knight is a very good defender of your king !
After 32. c5, it was some relief, and i began to be confident. A rook in b7 and it's basically over !
Till the end, after move 32, i just liquidated the overnumerous pieces, eat that last h3 pawn to be able to place my famous rook on b7, not more.
To conclude i think that mainly f7 pawn is really too much inactive in this game, it could have made the difference to bring it into action.
Same remark for a7, if you push a6 early, i am stucked on the queenside.
Here i managed to put a pawn in d6, and you can notice this pawn resisted till this end, this pawn lead to mate threats with Qxb7, and finally to mate threats with Rb7 in final position. I can say this d6 pawn decided the game... So Nf5xd6 is indeed to be considered seriously, i guess.
Hope this has answered your questions.
Anyway i'm doing mistakes too. I do not play alot on RHP so my rating here is somehow underevaluated, i play regularly on ICC where i am an average 1650 in standard games and my top score around 1760.
Good to see two players going over their game.
Yes where did 8.Bf4 come from ? (it came from c1 😉)
On f4 it became a developing target for Black.
But it holds up the centre cracking f6
8...f6 9.Bg3.
So don't flog yourself, I'm sure it's a move.
8.Be3 looks better. As does 8.Na3 .
Keep the play on the side where his King is the ROT in opposite side castling.
The first one to stop and defend loses is another.
You could have used diagrams in your piece.
In this position etc etc.
and in this positon I was thinking...etc etc.
Very few are going to back and play over the game to read the notes.
(well EM might/should).
But with a diagram they would have noted what you were saying.
and this:
"As Carlsen said "give me a knight on f8 and i will defend any position"
Carlsen got that from Larsen.😉
Originally posted by EmLaskerI think you lost a tempo after you exchanged your queen for his queen. You made 5 queen moves against your opponent who just made 4 moves. I think your last queen move prior to the exchange was not accurate. It appeared you failed to assess the treat against your king before executing it.
Game 6075639
Just my opinion.