This was my game against this one GM in Pardubice Open this year.



Evaluate 1.. Nf3

This is somewhat hard, but somewhat easy at the same time. It might look that Nf3 doesn't make any sense, that's why it's important to find blacks 3rd move in this "combination", and then evaluate if it works, or not.

my guess:

Perfect!

awesome problem.

Is that sarcasm Dire?

I think that this is a genuinely good problem. Don't forget your opponent's counterplay!

Nice problem! I saw the black combo quickly but I missed Nh6+.

No not at all. I really think this problem is very cool. It's so easy to get wrapped up in "wow, he's dead here.." and miss such a finish.

Cool position, may I steal it and perhaps use it sometimes as a training position?

Sure

Now I know that you are person with high ethical standards - most people wouldn't ask, and to be honest, they wouldn't be doing anything wrong by just taking it. But it's still nice you did ask, thank you!

yeah I was going to steal it and say nothing

Doesn't white have 3. 0-0 as well?

I think then just Rc6 and White has practically no defence against Rg6, maybe he can find something like Qe7-e5-g3 getting some material for the queen. Best to ask the computer on this one imo.

A cool thing is that the mate idea here seems to work even a tempo down! If White "mistakenly" goes Rf1 instead of Rg1, he still has Nh6+ at the end (doesn't work after castling because he needs to go Rg1+ next).

LOL stop embarrassing me! I chose to go to this line 3 or 4 moves ago, cause from far away I thought Nf3 was winning.. and of course in this position if Nf3 doesn't work I have nothing. I had better possibilities before, but I let him arrive to his position only cause I thought I am winning

Black has pretty good compensation for the pawn here no? All pieces developed aiming at center, pretty sure it should be reasonable without the Nf3 move. That's why it's a good training problem (evaluate the position), or so I thought, and the students have to not go for the flashy move, which is tempting when down a pawn, but instead just play normally.

one quick possible sample line is qf4 00 be2 re1 bd3 cd3 nc2 nc2 rc2 and f2 pawn is a problem. I just have a feeling black should be able to do a bunch of reasonable things here?

Also if Nd5 there probably take and e4 or something. I dunno concrete variations I just see a lot of cool looking things for black, seems like something should be dangerous.

Maybe just the simple ...Bh5 gives good comp too

Also at a quick glance even ....Be2 seems like it's a possible try. Time to run it in Rybka

Ok Rybka gives a few killing lines for black that I missed after 00 (especially with ...Qh4 on the first move and in this even has black as slightly better), so I think I'm right that the position is totally fine for black if you just play normally.

One sample line is ...Qh4 00 Be2 Re1 Nf3! gf3 Qg5 Ng2 Rd3 and black is basically winning. But yea the whole position is much more pleasant to play for black than white IMO.


Also immediate Be2 wasn't the best because I missed Bf3 after Rc2 but even there black has some real compensation.

Sorry I don't number moves, I know it may be confusing, I'm too lazy.

Wow, thanks for the analysis curtains. I expressed myself quite incorrectly in the previous post - (this is actually another good thing to say to your students) I arrived to this position hoping to play Nf3, so I really didn't think about other alternatives too much, though I felt that I should have decent compensation in the other lines due to my active pieces and stuff. This is a good example of how you should look at the position with fresh eyes, instead of just blindly following your previous calculations that might be incorrect. However, after the game ended in a painful loss, I convinced myself (incorrectly) that if Nf3 didn't work, then I had to choose another continuation before that, and I had somehow locked this thought in my mind up until now without really analyzing it further. Now you proved that black has enough compensation here, thanks for that