*** Chess BBV ***

[TexAg06]

Congrats on going 7/7, that's really impressive. Any idea on what kind of performance rating that is? Pretty wild game by the way. A couple of thoughts/questions if you don't mind.

1) I agree with your assessment of 8...a6. What was the thought process at the time?

2) I'm going back and forth, but I think 9...Bd4 might be FPS. Castling is a move you're going to do anyway, so you might as well do it there. Bd4 seems to waste a tempo to me since you said you didn't like the idea of capturing on c3 (I agree with you there too). The bishop ends up getting kicked around a bit and I think would have been better posted on c5 with the ability to retreat to a7 if necessary.

3) I like 15...f5 a ton. If white's kingside pawns get rolling, things could get nasty. Great move.

4) Also agree that 29...Bd7 is a great move. Black is completely toast after you take over that diagonal.

5) Don't let white's mouse slip claim take away from the game for you. Two things. First, I'm not sure it was a mouse slip. What move did he say he was trying to make? It looks like he just overlooked your threat. And secondly, you had him under a ton of pressure, particularly on the diagonal. He was going to crack at some point, and people blunder when they're under pressure. You played really well, don't let him diminish that.

[TexAg06]

Originally Posted by Do it Right

Hahaha, aye. I have a ridiculously oversized chess library but Silman's books are some of the few I have managed to read from cover to cover. His books are just so much fun to read. I'm not sure if that's the cause though. I think it's just a part of development. When anybody learns the moves and some basic opening concepts and strategy there invariably ends up a game that goes something like: e4 Nf3 Bc4 Nc3 Bg5/f4 d3 O-O and then.. ermmm what now? I think it's just natural to want to preserve the symmetry and solidity. And similarly when you build up this great positional theme even if at a much higher level, it's only natural to want to continue building upon it...... It's satisfying!

ugh Qd6.

Qd6 makes me laugh because that's a move I could see myself playing and thinking "Man I am dominating this guy. There goes another dark square defender. I better pat myself on the back for being such a fantastic positional player". And then 5 moves later I'd wonder why I couldn't find a forced winning line.

What did you personally do to get out of that mindset? After your coach mentioned that to you, did you try to consciously play a certain way, or did that just open your mind to a new way of thinking so you started to view positions differently, start to consider different candidate moves, etc?

[Vempele]

Qd6 loses half a pawn worth of material, improves Black's pawn structure and opens the e-file for Black. How could you justify even one of these concessions?

[Do it Right]

Originally Posted by TexAg06

Qd6 makes me laugh because that's a move I could see myself playing and thinking "Man I am dominating this guy. There goes another dark square defender. I better pat myself on the back for being such a fantastic positional player". And then 5 moves later I'd wonder why I couldn't find a forced winning line.

What did you personally do to get out of that mindset? After your coach mentioned that to you, did you try to consciously play a certain way, or did that just open your mind to a new way of thinking so you started to view positions differently, start to consider different candidate moves, etc?

Hahah, that's a tough question.

I think ultimately for me it was just an issue of mental laziness. Qd6 is an easy move to play because it accomplishes your positional goals and leaves black completely without any counterplay. But the issue isn't so much that as: "Ok, that's nice and all, but how are you going to win?" If I forced myself to honestly answer that question then it's pretty clear that Qd6 doesn't actually do much besides severely decrease my winning chances.

I know something I obsess over now is always having a fantasy plan of what to do if my opponent does nothing. After 25. Qd6 Qxd6 what is white supposed to do if black does nothing? It becomes clear that the dark square control isn't going to win the game by itself. White needs to do something. The only real plan has to involve e4 but it's clear that really isn't going to lead to much since if I ever trade off my light bishop for his knight the opposite bishops and lack of a major pawn imbalance are going to make winning exceptionally difficult. The game is blown.

[KyleJRM82]

Originally Posted by TexAg06

1) I agree with your assessment of 8...a6. What was the thought process at the time?

I spent four minutes on the move. The first two were sitting there thinking how awesome it might be to play d4, then 15 seconds of horror at realizing how close I was to making that exact blunder yet again in a Scotch game, then some time trying to figure out a way to develop without committing to castling kingside, and finally deciding that it can't be done without stopping the threat of Bb5. Was trying to maintain "flexibility."

[John_Douglas]

I just wanted to chime in on the subject of traditional middlegame books, that they basically have everything backwards. They will start with a position and say "this is an example of exploiting the open file" and then White proceeds to take over the open file and win.

But in reality, you start with the position and you have a variety of options - maybe the best way to play is to exploit the open file, maybe you need to create a pawn storm on the Kingside, or maybe you need to improve your Bishop. The only way to find out is to calculate the options. Even if it's obvious that you have to play on the open file, there's always something to calculate - do you exchange all the rooks, one pair of rooks, do you start with Rfd1 or Rad1?

Sometimes it happens that after calculating a lot of variations you come up with a strategic insight like "the best square for the Knight is h2" - but that is after calculations, not before. I feel that a lot of middle game books aimed at players under 2000 give a false picture of how chess is really played and as a result players who rely on them tend to become stunted in their development.

As for my advice about how to break through the 2000 barrier - I think the only way is to play many games against better players. At first you'll lose almost every game, but eventually you'll become tougher and start to understand what it takes to play at that level.

[Vempele]

Originally Posted by John_Douglas

But in reality, you start with the position and you have a variety of options - maybe the best way to play is to exploit the open file, maybe you need to create a pawn storm on the Kingside, or maybe you need to improve your Bishop. The only way to find out is to calculate the options. Even if it's obvious that you have to play on the open file, there's always something to calculate - do you exchange all the rooks, one pair of rooks, do you start with Rfd1 or Rad1?

And that's still first level strategic thinking. Your opponent has plans too. Maybe you can disrupt them while working towards one of your goals. Maybe it would be useful to have him commit to a plan before you commit to yours, so you start by improving the bishop because it's useful no matter what. Maybe his plan is just so powerful (compared to yours) that countering it is more important than anything else. Maybe his last move(s) only makes sense as part of an unsound plan that you may want to avoid disrupting.

[KyleJRM82]

I swear to dog if every game I played as white was a Siclian I'd be 1900+

This one had some extra style points.
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=68199

[KyleJRM82]

DIR, Tex, everyone else: I don't have anything to add to that conversation, but it's really fascinating. Thank you!

[TexAg06]

Originally Posted by KyleJRM82

I swear to dog if every game I played as white was a Siclian I'd be 1900+

This one had some extra style points.
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=68199

Qh5 was pretty dang slick man. Very pretty game. I love how long the Bf6# motif lasted, practically all game.

[TexAg06]

Originally Posted by John_Douglas

I just wanted to chime in on the subject of traditional middlegame books, that they basically have everything backwards. They will start with a position and say "this is an example of exploiting the open file" and then White proceeds to take over the open file and win.

But in reality, you start with the position and you have a variety of options - maybe the best way to play is to exploit the open file, maybe you need to create a pawn storm on the Kingside, or maybe you need to improve your Bishop. The only way to find out is to calculate the options. Even if it's obvious that you have to play on the open file, there's always something to calculate - do you exchange all the rooks, one pair of rooks, do you start with Rfd1 or Rad1?

Sometimes it happens that after calculating a lot of variations you come up with a strategic insight like "the best square for the Knight is h2" - but that is after calculations, not before. I feel that a lot of middle game books aimed at players under 2000 give a false picture of how chess is really played and as a result players who rely on them tend to become stunted in their development.

As for my advice about how to break through the 2000 barrier - I think the only way is to play many games against better players. At first you'll lose almost every game, but eventually you'll become tougher and start to understand what it takes to play at that level.

This is great stuff man, and I couldn't agree more about how positional chess is taught. When I read Silman's books (again, great author, don't get me wrong), I would look at a position and immediately form my game around the first positional nuance I noticed. Whether that was an outpost square (that might have been on the wrong side of the board), an open file (that did nothing to help my game), or a bad minor piece (that actually wasn't bad at all, but was bad based on classical rules), I basically began playing chess hopping from one positional theme to the next. That's certainly no way to play at all, but like you said, that's how most books teach it. Also, they usually show a game in which that one particular theme (control of an open file, for example) is so dominating that the game nearly wins itself based upon that, which is the mindset I got into and still struggle with. Plus, the opposition usually doesn't do much in the way of counterattacking, they just sit back and take it. Again, not the way stronger players approach the game.

Another complaint is that all positional books I've seen teach positional aspects without considering the tempo aspect. In most books, whichever color they're showing has all the time in the world to maneuver a knight to d5 or double rooks on the h-file. In real world chess, you almost always have to take the opponent's plans into account, deal with his counterplay, and all the while advance your own plans. I've never found a real world situation as cut-and-dry as anything I've seen in books. If I see the game Alekhine-Nimzovich 1930, where Alekhine first used his famed "Alekhine's Gun" technique, used in a book one more time as an example of how to use an open file I'm going to scream. How often does a position like that ever arise in real life? Here's a link to the game I'm talking about.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1012683

[John_Douglas]

Originally Posted by Vempele

And that's still first level strategic thinking. Your opponent has plans too. Maybe you can disrupt them while working towards one of your goals. Maybe it would be useful to have him commit to a plan before you commit to yours, so you start by improving the bishop because it's useful no matter what. Maybe his plan is just so powerful (compared to yours) that countering it is more important than anything else. Maybe his last move(s) only makes sense as part of an unsound plan that you may want to avoid disrupting.

Yeah, of course it goes without saying that you need to consider your opponents' possibilities too.

But I guess my point is that the whole narrative about plans and strategies only comes after you get into the specifics of trying to understand a position. All this thinking about pawn structures and imbalances might give you an idea of where to start looking, but concrete calculation is always primary.

[Do it Right]

Originally Posted by KyleJRM82

I swear to dog if every game I played as white was a Siclian I'd be 1900+

This one had some extra style points.
http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=68199

Haha. Damn the secret is out. Didn't you know playing the sicilian is mostly a bluff? I'm not saying that entirely tongue in cheek either. It's not uncommon to have 70%+ of your games against players U2200 or whatever be in gimmicky anti-sicilians that give black so much better positions than he could ever even hope for in something like a ruy lopez.

It's kind of funny. I imagine people play the anti-sicilians to 'get you out of book', yet I know just about every anti-sicilian a million times better than I do the main lines! And the main line sicilians can be very tough for black - that's why they're the main line!

[KyleJRM82]

Haha, yes. People always say they are scared of the Sicilian because "they don't want to learn so much theory."

Maybe it's just me, but the white side of a basic open Sicilian is the most theory-less game in chess outside of something really boring like symmetrical four knights or something. As white, you can play whatever you want pretty much, and unless black knows the exact theory for whatever random moves you feel like playing, you get an advantage. If he does, you get equality at worst. Black just sits back and says "attack me" and I say "okay I will."

[Cadaz]

haha so true