This is a club game that I played against a very strong player. I didn’t expect to win, but I was happy to have a reasonable position for much of the game. I’ve been learning about pawn breaks, and there are some lessons here about how to use them well, which I did not do!
The opening was a straightforward King’s Indian Defence, although I haven’t really studied 7. 0-0, which maintains the pressure in the center. I’ve studied the positions when white takes (7. dxe5) and when white pushes (7. d5). I’ll have to look at what black’s strategy should be when white maintains the tension.
I decided to develop my knight to d7 and remain flexible. Then I figured a fianchetto of the light-squared bishop would put some pressure on the center. My opponent then committed to the d5 push. Now the structure is more familiar, with the closed center that I’m used to in the King’s Indian Defense, although my bishop is perhaps a little bit misplaced.
But I figured I could put a knight on c5, preparing with an …a5 push to prevent getting kicked, and then play for the …f5 pawn break.
The move 12 …Nfd7 was a bit of a mistake. My idea was to open up the …f5 pawn break, but I should have played …Nxd3 first. Actually, during the game, I thought that I could prepare for …f5 first (by moving the knight out of the way) and then remove the bishop with …Nxd3 followed by …f5. But I totally missed white’s response of Bc2. Now the bishop covers the f5 square, so I can’t make that break!
At least, that’s what I thought during the game. I calculated that after exchanging on f5, and after trading dark-squared bishops, my king would be too weak. I was anticipating something like this:
But actually, this position is fine for black. A move like …f4 or …Qe7 maintains my king safety, and I’m not worse.
Instead, I decided that the …f5 break wasn’t possible. As an alternative, I started trying to generate some play on the queen side. Which was not a terrible plan, and it was going reasonably well, for a while.
I hadn’t done a very good job of calculating this position, and actually missed the move a4 after all of the trades. I was lucky that …Rb4 worked and protected my a-pawn. Now I was adding pressure to white’s e- and b-pawns, and thinking that I could bring my queen and other rook over to the b-file to add more pressure.
But, in the spirit of mistakes related to pawn breaks, I missed a very important one!
I had another opportunity to push …f5, and didn’t take it! The engine really likes this break. I didn’t even consider it because of the white bishop, but actually that bishop is overloaded because it also needs to defend the b-pawn. A line like the following would have worked well, opening up my rook, and allowing my other knight to come to c5:
Or, if white chooses to capture:
But instead of that, I allowed white to play the f4 break.
The engine actually isn’t crazy about that move, but it sure worked against me! I was worried about opening things up, and I didn’t want white to push f5. So I ended up making a bad move to try to prevent it: pushing …f5 myself (finally). But this was the wrong time to do so, as it gave white a serious initiative.
Instead, taking the f-pawn and planting my knight on e5 would have been perfectly fine for black:
Instead, after white infiltrated with the queen, I caved under the pressure and lost quite quickly.
Key Moments
- I feel like 12…Nxd3 was a pretty important move to make, opening up a more sensible break on f5.
- Not pushing 20…f5 was a serious miss, since white’s bishop was overloaded and the break would have activated my rook and knight while maintaining pressure on white’s b-pawn.
- I overreacted to white’s f4 break, and didn’t think through my next move very well. It would have been better to stay calm and calculate the lines. This is a psychological issue I have noticed in other games as well. If I feel like I’ve made a terrible mistake, then it’s almost like my brain “gives up” before the game is really over, and I make some bad and/or desperate moves. Keeping my cool, trying to find the best moves, and calculating well is something that I need to work on in these scenarios.
It was a great game, with some nice lessons. Check out the full game below!