Game analysis help if anyone is interested

[TexAg06]

I played in a tournament this weekend and played pretty poorly overall. One game in particular is giving me trouble. I was on the white side of the Budapest Gambit in a variation I've never encountered before.

I've run the game through Houdini to pick up on any tactics I missed, but I was wondering if y'all would mind giving me more plan-based feedback, as in where I made conceptual mistakes like minor piece placement, bad plans, etc. Here's a link to the game.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.chessvideos.tv/chess-game...r.php?id=67679

And I annotated the game a bit in Chessbase with some thoughts if that helps get inside my messed up head.

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 g5

Never encountered this variation of the Budapest in tournament play, so I was on my own from here.

5. Bg3 Bg7 6.Nf3 Nc6 7. Nc3

The move played here isn't bad, but the top players in the database are playing 7.h4 for quick play on the kingside. I didn't know that at the time, but do now.

7...Ngxe5 8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. e3 d6 10. Be2 O-O

10...Be6 is significantly more popular.

11. Qc2

Played with the idea of taking control of the b1-h7 diagonal which has been weakened by the ...g5 advance. Also planning to meet 11...Be6 with 12.b3 and the knight on c3 is protected.

11...Be6 12. b3 a5 13. h4

Better late than never.

13...g4 14. h5 h6 15. Rd1

I thought for a long time before 15.Rd1 trying to decide what to do. Basically I didn't see a clear plan and wanted to see how black would commit. This seemed like a good multi-purpose move, and the computer actually liked it best here.

15... Qd7 16. Nb5

The idea here was to relocate the knight to d4 to take control of the f5
square and capture the light-squared bishop at an opportune time to weaken the light squares around the king. If I had to do it all over again, I'd select
another plan. I wasn't able to really do much against black's king, it's
safer than it looks.

16...Qc6 17. Rh2

Unnecessary. I was worried about black capturing on g2, but I miscalculated. That's not a threat at all. The immediate 17.Nd4 is called for and the queen has to retreat to d7. Poor play on my part.

17...Qc5 18. Nd4 Rfe8 19. Kf1

Running low on time, I wanted to get
out of any possible e-file tactics and random Nd3/Nf3 discovered checks at
some point.

19...a4 20. Nxe6 Rxe6 21. b4

I can't let the a-file get opened and allow that rook to become active. The computer actually likes this move best and gives white a 0.50 advantage at this point. Too bad I'm not Houdini and can't convert.

21...Qxb4 22. Rb1 Qc5 23. Rb5

Turns out 23.Rxb7 was better. At the time I was still focused on black's king and wanted to force the queen off the central dark squares and the strong post. Again, I had less than 10 minutes at this point and was playing mostly on intuition.

23...Qc6 24. Bxe5

Played with the idea of 26.Rh4 as played in the game.

24...Rxe5 25. Rxe5 Bxe5 26. Rh4 Qd7 27. Rxg4+ Kh8 28. f4

In time trouble, I play a not-so-good move. Houdini likes 28.Qe4 and gives white a 1.0 advantage. The position is still very messy, though.

28...Bf6 29. Qe4 Re8 30. Qf3 Qf5 31. Qxb7 Qc2 32. Qxc7??

Completely missing black's game-ending idea.

Qc1+ 33. Kf2 Qxe3+ 0-1

Painful.

[Do it Right]

Paragraph chess, now that's fun!

5. Bg3 - When faced with an unusual move like this I'd assume generally that an opponent who is playing the budapest in a tourney game is probably going to be very well prepared. Bg3 is obviously the 'correct' move but from a practical stand point I might try 5. Bd2 with the simple idea of Bc3. The idea is simply to play a normal += position where his opening preparation is not so useful.

8. Nxe5 - I don't entirely understand this. I'd prefer the simple e3. It doesn't seem like exchanges favor you in any way here while black, whose pieces are at least somewhat stepping on their own toes, is likely quite happy to be getting rid of one of his knights.

11. Qc2 - Okay, this move I think is a very critical point. There is a very thematic idea for white against the budapest. In similar structures to the one you have white has the idea: Nd5 Rc1 c5 - sometimes c5 coming earlier in the sequence if tactics/positional considerations allow it. And it's really not easy to face at all for black - I learned that quite quickly the handful of times I tried out the Budapest! Playing b6 makes his light squares all around the board a wreck and enables white to start jamming a queenside attack with b4, etc. Not to mention that black's kingside isn't exactly a beacon of security. It's a simple idea but I think probably the key one for white in the Budapest. Qc2 kind of murks up this plan.

I think h4 is the move here. It's even a half bluff since if black plays g4 that gives you the option of winning a pawn with Bxe5. But the real idea behind h4 is simply to protect your kingside since if you immediately play 11. O-O then 11. .. h5 could be kind of annoying. 12. Bxe5 Bxe5 13. Bxh5 wins a pawn but I'm not sure that's the type of pawn you want to win giving up the bishop pair and opening up the h file. Regardless one way or the other your kingside becomes safer and it's a very difficult move for black to face if he's not comfortable with the pawn sac 11. .. g4. And of course you don't have to take it. The idea is to get on with the Budapest Buster. I like 1. h4 g4 2. O-O!? It gets a bit messy after 2. .. Be6 3. Rc1 but black is in a do or die situation there and I don't see too much for him.

12. b3 - I just don't like making moves like this. It's a pretty big concession since it permanently weakens your position just to defend against black's one move threat. The interesting thing is it looks like c5 can still work here. 1. c5!? dxc 2. h4 g4 3. Rd1 Qe7 4. Nd5 and black's position is just hanging on by a string for the sake of a single pawn which you will almost certainly shortly win back. If not that then Nb5->d4 is another idea.

14. h5 - You can probably guess by now which move I'm going to suggest.

15. Rd1 - Ok, I'm going to stop here before I turn into a broken record.

Tough game. I'd strongly recommend checking out some budapest games with strong white players in your database. The budapest buster with c5 is, to my knowledge, the reason very few players are willing to take on the more classical budapest positions. And similarly, to my knowledge, the only budapest variations this doesn't really apply to are the rapid rook lift ones with the early a5/Ra6 ideas - but almost nobody plays the Budapest and of those guys almost none of them play that ideas so maybe it's not such a big concern!

[Do it Right]

Here's a great instance of the 'budapest buster' :

[Event "SWE-chT 0506"]
[Site "Sweden"]
[Date "2006.??.??"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Nielsen, Peter Heine"]
[Black "Wedberg, Tom"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A52"]
[WhiteElo "2694"]
[BlackElo "2553"]
[PlyCount "71"]
[EventDate "2005.10.??"]
[EventType "team"]
[EventRounds "11"]
[EventCountry "SWE"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2007.11.25"]
[WhiteTeam "Stockholm Rockaden"]
[BlackTeam "Wasa"]
[WhiteTeamCountry "SWE"]
[BlackTeamCountry "SWE"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Bf4 Nc6 5. Nf3 Bb4+ 6. Nbd2 Qe7 7. e3 Ngxe5
8. Nxe5 Nxe5 9. Be2 d6 10. O-O Bd7 11. a3 Ba5 12. c5 Bxd2 13. Qxd2 Bc6 14. cxd6
cxd6 15. Rfd1 Rd8 16. Qa5 a6 17. Rd4 f6 18. Rad1 Rd7 19. b4 O-O 20. a4 b5 21.
Rc1 Ra7 22. Rd2 Qb7 23. f3 d5 24. Bxe5 fxe5 25. Rdc2 Rc8 26. f4 Raa8 27. fxe5
d4 28. exd4 Be4 29. Rc7 Rxc7 30. Rxc7 Qd5 31. Qb6 Bxg2 32. Bg4 Re8 33. Rc8 Rxc8
34. Be6+ Kh8 35. Bxd5 Bxd5 36. e6 1-0

I think that a 2550 chose to accept that hopelessly broken pawn structure over taking on c5 speaks bounds. It's just such an effective idea.

[Do it Right]

[Event "Politiken Cup 26th"]
[Site "Copenhagen"]
[Date "2004.07.29"]
[Round "7"]
[White "Hansen, Curt"]
[Black "Miezis, Normunds"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "A52"]
[WhiteElo "2635"]
[BlackElo "2502"]
[PlyCount "64"]
[EventDate "2004.07.24"]
[EventType "swiss"]
[EventRounds "10"]
[EventCountry "DEN"]
[Source "ChessBase"]
[SourceDate "2004.09.01"]
[WhiteTeamCountry "GER"]
[BlackTeamCountry "GER"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e5 3. dxe5 Ng4 4. Nf3 Bc5 5. e3 Nc6 6. Nc3 Ncxe5 7. Be2 O-O 8.
Nxe5 Nxe5 9. O-O Re8 10. b3 a5 11. Na4 Bf8 12. f4 Ng6 13. Qd2 c6 14. Bb2 d5 15.
cxd5 Bf5 16. Bd4 b5 17. Nc5 Qxd5 18. Bf3 Qd6 19. g3 Qc7 20. Rac1 Rad8 21. Na6
Qb7 22. Qxa5 Rxd4 23. exd4 Qa7 24. Rf2 Ne7 25. b4 Qxd4 26. Nc5 Nd5 27. Bxd5 Re2
28. Rcf1 Rxf2 29. Rxf2 Qd1+ 30. Rf1 Qd4+ 31. Rf2 Qd1+ 32. Rf1 Qd4+ 1/2-1/2

Another game where a strong black player was left contorting his position while trying to create a plan with prophylaxis against c5.

[Vempele]

Originally Posted by TexAg06

5. Bg3 Bg7 6.Nf3 Nc6 7. Nc3

The move played here isn't bad, but the top players in the database are playing 7.h4 for quick play on the kingside. I didn't know that at the time, but do now.

You can transpose with 9. h4, and it's even stronger with the omission of e3. After 9...g4 (9...Nxc4 10. e4 Nxb2 11. Qc2 Na4 12. Nd5; 9...h6 is "best", but his position is still horrible after 10. hxg5 hxg5 11. Rxh8+ Bxh8 12. Qa4!) 10. h5 h6 11. Bh4 Bf6 (the point - Black would have a half-decent position if he could play Qd7 now). 12. Bxf6 Qxf6 13. Nd5 Qd6 (the following also works against 13...Qd8) 14. f4! exf3 15. exf3! and now if 15...c6 16. Ne3, Black can't trade queens as he'd immediately lose a pawn due to his hanging knight (also, 16...Qb4+ 17. Kf2!).

[TexAg06]

DiR, thank you very much for taking the time to write out such a detailed reply. I really do appreciate it. Here are some of my random thoughts/replies to your posts.

The reason I played 8.Nxe5 was mainly because I didn't want black playing 8...Nxf3 9.Qxf3 and white's development looks a little awkward. I don't really want to play Bd3 and walk right into a Ne5 at some point, but also wouldn't want to play Be2 and the queen is stranded on the kingside. Maybe there's a better way for white to develop without playing 8.Nxe5.

I think you're completely right about 11.h4. Looking at it now and after reading what you wrote, it looks so logical and natural. I'm not sure why I didn't play it at the time. I guess I was just overly preoccupied with 11...Be6 and the attack on c4.

And it's funny that you bring up the c5 push, because as I was going over this game in Chessbase I noticed that was a very common theme here, I just didn't realize how strong. I'm familiar with that plan in the more traditional Budapest lines with ...Bb4+, but here I became too focused on the kingside after the ...g5 push. I'm definitely going to review those couple of games plus others in the line.

From a practical standpoint, I also think you're right about playing 5.Bd2. I thought about that during the game for the exact reason you mentioned, but decided on Bg3 because it was "right". Strangely enough, after looking in the database, there is almost a 50/50 split with Bg3/Bd2 among top players. Bd2 certainly isn't one of those lesser moves to take someone out of book, it's fully playable. And right on cue, after Bg3 the opponent blitzed out the next 7-8 moves without using much clock at all, he was fully in book. Bd2 would have definitely been a better choice.

Vempele, that's a really interesting idea/line. I'm going to have to look into that more when I get home. OTB I didn't even consider something like that, I just settled on what looked more solid.

Thank y'all both for the help again, really.

[mightytiny]

Diagrams inserted into the thread where you want opinions would be nice.

[TexAg06]

Originally Posted by mightytiny

Diagrams inserted into the thread where you want opinions would be nice.

I didn't have any specific positions in mind, so I posted a link to the entire game. Sometimes if you post just a diagram, you'll get good feedback in that particular position, but you might have made an error in planning a few moves prior. So I wanted to provide the entire game for more high-level type feedback.

[TexAg06]

Looking back over the game now, a c5 push at some point seems so natural, I almost wonder how I missed it. It's strange how you can become so focused on an idea or plan and completely ignore things that look obvious.