It’s round 3! I won my first game on Friday night, and I lost my second game on Saturday morning. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect next.
This game was the second game on Saturday, and although I had just lost one, I went into this one with a positive attitude. Anything can happen!
My opponent had a bit of a lower rating at 1364 (my rating was 1503). But I knew I was still going to need to earn the win. So here we go!
Opening – Closed Sicilian
There isn’t much to discuss from the opening. This is a system that I generally use against the Sicilian. To be honest, I still don’t know it that well, but I learned it in order to avoid learning a lot of Open Sicilian theory.
Middle Game – Questionable pawn play, a good trade, a missed tactic, and a drawish endgame?
Right away, I made a mistake which gave away any advantage I had from the opening:
This was a misunderstanding of the opening and the demands of the position. The best move is f5:
I confess that I don’t understand all of the intricacies of why f5 is better. I suppose it’s because it undermines black’s kingside fianchetto structure, blocks the light-squared bishop, and potentially opens the f-file for my rook. That said, it also appears to lose a pawn (although it turns out there are tactics to win it back). I had played fxe5 instead with the idea that it opens up my dark-squared bishop, but f5 also accomplishes that goal, along with the other benefits. Maybe it’s as simple as that.
For the next few moves I maneuvered around a bit, trying to find the plan:
At this point, I wasn’t really sure what to do. Things seemed pretty locked down. I figured that an eventual d4 push would be needed in order to break things open, and I would need to push c3 to make that possible. I had good control of the d4 square, but still not sure how to break through.
This move seems kinda silly in retrospect. My whole plan was to eventually play d4, and pushing c4 made it basically impossible, locking things down even further.
I just couldn’t figure out a way to make the d4 push work. I didn’t like that it would give me an isolated e-pawn:
So instead, I decided the c4 push gave me a potential outpost on d5 that I could pretty easily maneuver a knight onto:
According to the engine, I was correct in evaluating that the d4 push doesn’t work. The c4 push is also not terrible, it’s the 4th-best move according to Stockfish, giving an eval of -0.3 compared to 0.0 for the best move.
Apparently, the best move here is g4.
I’m not really clear on why this is. I suppose it helps to restrict an eventual …f5 pawn break from black, and keeps my c- and d-pawns flexible in case the d4 break becomes possible later.
I’m actually very proud of this move, taking the knight with the bishop, because I felt like I correctly evaluated the position, made a tough choice, and ultimately, the engine agreed with me 🙂
This was my reasoning: I didn’t like black having the knight on the d4 outpost, and wanted to trade it off rather than letting it sit there limiting my movement. Normally, trading with my knight would seem like the better option. However, my dark-squared bishop is already pretty bad because of how many of black’s pawns are on dark squares, and the trade would make my bishop even worse!
Instead, I correctly evaluated that I could remove black’s good knight for my bad bishop, giving up the bishop pair for adequate compensation.
I also removed black’s light squared bishop. Now we had opposite coloured bishops, meaning that the endgame could be drawish if too many pieces are traded off.
Then I blundered! I missed a tactic here which would have won an important pawn and given me an edge:
After taking the pawn, it’s not really a rook sacrifice, because my bishop can pin the black rook to the king, and if it’s defended then I can push g4 to ultimately win the rook.
I didn’t see this during the game. In fact, I don’t recall even evaluating the possibility of taking the pawn with my rook. Why not? Probably pattern recognition. I saw that the pawn was defended by the rook, and so I didn’t even consider capturing it.
The lesson for me is to look for more patterns than just the obvious one. Yes, the pawn is defended, but there are two other patterns that were worth seeing:
- The pawn is not defended by another pawn, only the rook, which is a high-value piece.
- The pawn is lined up with the king on a diagonal, which may allow for tactical opportunities.
Perhaps noticing these two patterns would have helped me to find the move. In any case, my opponent and I both missed it, and for several moves as it was possible on moves 23 and 24 as well.
At this point, my opponent kept asking, numerous time, if I would take a draw, since we had opposite coloured bishops. I declined. I was a bit worried, because I’ve had times in the past where I’ve declined a draw and then gone on to lose the game.
However, in this case, I felt like my queenside play was strong. I had the a-file that I could use, and black’s b-pawn seemed very weak. If I could win it, then I would have two connected passed pawns on the queenside. I wasn’t sure, but I thought maybe I had the advantage in this position. So we played on.
This wins the b-pawn, which is what I was going for all along!
However, taking the pawn was a blunder! I missed a key idea: black could play …f3! making a passed pawn only two squares from promotion, defended by their rook. Also it pushes my knight to a much more passive square. The only thing preventing …f3 is my bishop, but in winning the pawn the bishop also gets traded off.
Instead of taking the pawn right away, it would have been better to bring the bishop back, blocking any movement from black’s pawns, and then playing Rfa1 to infiltrate with my second rook on the a-file.
I was very focused on trying to win black’s b-pawn, and ignored their potential counterplay. It’s something I’m still working on; when I focus pretty strongly on one goal, I need to remember to be flexible and adjust my plans if the position calls for it.
However…
My opponent also, evidently, missed the idea of pushing …f3. Instead, they continued offering trades, probably still pushing toward a drawn endgame.
Endgame – Incorrect Pawn Play on Both Sides
This was the wrong idea for a couple of reasons. In the end, neither of us saw black’s winning counterplay, and so this mistake didn’t amount to much. But it’s still instructional.
First, it allows black to potentially blockade my passed pawns with their bishop:
But that’s not even the correct idea for black. Although I have a nice-looking pawn chain with two passed pawns, black can very quickly create counterplay with …e4!, undermining the base of the pawn chain, threatening to win my c-pawn, and perhaps making a passed pawn of their own. One line could go like this:
And now it’s not so easy for white.
Instead, pushing the c-pawn was the way to go, avoiding the weakness at the base of the pawn chain, and preventing the bishop from assisting. Next, I should relieve the pawn tension and activate my king to prevent any counterplay.
Ultimately, my opponent did not see the idea of undermining my pawn chain, and I was able to bring my king, removing any of black’s chances.
Now black has no hope, and I was able to gobble the pawns and win. To my opponent’s credit, he played it out until checkmate.
Key Moments
- Having a better understanding of the opening, and playing 9. f5 instead of 9. fxe5 would have given me more of an edge going into the middle game.
- Correctly evaluating the trade on move 19, giving up my bishop for the knight, is something I’m very happy with.
- Missing the 21. Rxf5 tactic is something to think about. I need to remember to evaluate potential captures, even if they don’t immediately look like they work. And to recognize tactical motifs, like the fact that after the captures, black’s rook would have been lined up with the king on the diagonal. These are the sorts of things I can find in chess puzzles, but it’s tough to find them in real games.
- I also should have respected black’s potential pawn play around moves 31 and 34. Luckily my opponent didn’t see it either, but it could have cost me the win.
Overall, a pretty good game, and I’m happy with how it went!