Just one of those ugly .... games

Game 4 of round 1

OTB 40moves/1h45min 15min KO

My opponent had the white pieces and seemingly he prepared an opening against me which was classified as "out of my book repertoire" . Normally he is a 1.e4 player, but this time he played 1.c4. I was nailed to my chair. A quick filling of the glasses was a must to keep Caissa pleased and off we go.



Thys,H (1743) - Montse (1565) [A16]
27.01.2007

No fancy stuff in this one. For godsake who plays the English.

1.c4 Nf6

What will he do? No benko tonight.


2.g3

idea of fianchetto and pressurizing the black Queenside through the white diagonal.

g6

I can play this too. No worries just keep close track on his moves.

3.Bg2

Now the logical Bg2 really annoyed me. It was time to through some "handcuffs" into the ring hmm well center. I played d5 straight away, directly what white wants.



4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.Nc3 c6

I really did not want to play c6 to reach a sort of caro-khan or whatever sort of structure. Played anyway c6. Actually the knight is a little bit loose on d5. If white hits the black knight the pawn would be in the center again. And logically speaking why did you play c4 in the first place if black may bring back his pawn to the center. Just have to be careful for Qa4 tricks especially in relation to the black rook on h8. Not defended. Although the rook is in no danger at the moment it is a good habit to keep track of your undefended pieces.


6.d4 Bg7 7.e4 Nxc3 8.bxc3

White has built a strong pawn center in the middle of the board. It is like an invitation that starts with a scream: " hit me hit me" . It is demolition time.
Black cannot wait to my perspective until white would be fully mobilized with his pieces. The center must be attacked. One has to keep in mind that freeing the center increases the power of the fianchettoed bishop as it will bear down at your pieces: "I can see you" "You cannot hide"

So what will I throw first my kitchen spoon "e-pawn" or the toilet sink "c-pawn". Choose my kitchen spoon.





e5 9.Ne2 exd4 10.cxd4 c5 11.Be3 Nc6


Up to this position we can roughly say that both positions are equal, no real advantage.

No comes the climax of blunders!!

12.e5??

Impressed by his move I showed that I could level him. I blundered with the immortal saying "safety first".

The only reason that I could see why he played this move is that in this way he open up his diagonal for his light squared bishop and block at the same time the diagonal of black's dark squared bishop. Although at first sight this might seem to be ok, it actually undermines, I think, the strenght of his center. In this way he creates a backward pawn which is multiply threatened.




The d4-pawn is 4 times attacked while three times defended by white. So he has to do something. with the d-pawn. I think d5 would have been a good try and this is actually confirmed by Fritz.

Now Fritzy says:

12.d5 Bxa1 13.Qxa1 Nd4 14.Nxd4 cxd4 15.Bxd4 0-0 +/-

Although black wins the exchange - a rook for a bishop - he has seriously weakened his kingside. The King has become quite vulnerable along the dark square as white has full compensation, still has a strong center where he can hide the dark squared bishop behind.

So my conclusion is that my opponent saw the material loss and discarded this option, without considering the position he could have obtained.

Now I know that he does not think 8 ply deep.

12. 0-0?? 13.0-0?? cxd4 14.Bxc6?? dxe3 15.Bg2 exf2+ 16.Rxf2 Bxe5

Now we have an example of the Arcane Utter Patzer Chess. Tension raises, spectacles are moved, beers zipped. Question marks thrown around, wood pushed, a sigh, a toilet time-out, a counter productive move, a gleam at the end of the tunnel, a smile, a green face.



So 12. e5 could have been immediately answered by cxd4.

17.Rb1?! Rb8 18.Qa4 Bf5 ½-½

Why did I offer a draw? Well I was starting to play really bad. Almost blundered my bishop away by playing g4. The bishop was still not released when I spotted that it was under attack of the Q and I could retrack it to f5. Just a great oversight which could have determined the game. So I decided to call it for today.



diagram after 18.Qa4 (nothing fancy) a6 was OK.

The reason why I wanted to play the Bishop to g4 was the following sequence: 18.Bg4 Qxa7 19. BxN!! and If RxN 20. Bd4+ and wins the Queen. Now both 18 moves can be classified as ?? The great thing was that the knight was not really defended coz of the double fork by the bishop against Queen and king.

If I go back to move 17. ..Rb8. Well this one is actual bad are really not to the point as black should play actively by reducing the activity of the white pieces. A queen swap was more to the point.

Although two pawns and soon only one pawn up. I would classify this game as a bad game.

Lessons to be learned:

*It is not good to change abruptly your opening repertoire to confront an opponent and try to wrinckle him out.
*Destroy your opponents activity when you are ahead in material. An approach of containment and effective activity reduction would be more accurate and effective.

or referring to mousetrapper's fine remark:

«If you are winning, it is a completely different game.»

A very important point, brought up by Dan Heisman in one of his older Novice Nook columns at chesscafe.com. The most important point is that security and the conservation of the advantage and the destruction of every possible counterplay are first goals, and that all other considerations become secondary.

Well what can I say