This looks just fine for me now. Of course, I thought Ne4 looked fine too (well, really I just thought it looked complicated and had plenty of chances for him to trip up, which is really a terrible reason to make a move, but oh well)...

axb4 is pretty much obvious here. The intriguing thing is that I wonder if he's planning on responding with axb4 himself, which would seem rather compliant but I'll take it if he wants it. He'd be giving me an open file and declining a semi-open file leading toward my backward pawn.

For the moment, I'll assume he still plans on the more sensible Qxb4. If he does that, I intend to use the semi-open a-file to its fullest extent. There's kind of an ugly tactical trap I can fall into if I leave the f8 rook underguarded. Something like Qxb4 Ra7 looks sensible, but then Bh7+ deflects the king away from guarding that rook. (The nice thing about the obscenely busy playing schedule I keep is that I have a large number of "I just lost a game that way, not falling for it again" moments.)

He's going to want to attack my weak pawn on the b-file, and I'm not going to get caught up defending it when there's a weak a-pawn to attack. (yet another way I lost a game recently. A pawn up with rooks and queens on the board, he piles up on my weak pawn and I pile up to defend it, then suddenly I'm lost). Rfb8 would alleviate the tactical weakness of that rook, temporarily defend the b-pawn and get me prepared for my assault on the a-file. Then, to be honest, I'm not sure what sort of active move he can respond with. f4 to get the kingside rolling? It feels too late for that now, the queenside is where the action is. His queen is more or less optimally placed. I don't see much improvement for his bishops. He'll need to get his rooks actively placed, but without much happening on the c-file, they are badly placed now and it's going to take him a couple of tempos to get them into shape.

So unless I'm missing something, I'll have the option after axb4/Qxb4 Rb8/something to play Qa5 if I want to. This gives my queen more or less marvelous scope, staring down that fourth file. If he wants to trade then, I'm fine with that, because then it's just down to his better bishop vs. my better rooks, and I have a feeling my rooks might just be enough.

I can also do Qxb4 but after Qa5 I dont like the look of the position for me because I will preety much have to eventually put a rook on the a-file to defend that pawn, if I put it on the b-file its much more protected because even thought its still going to be isolated he doesnt have an open file to attack it.

Okay. Really shocked he took with the pawn. My own weak pawn on b7 is now mostly shielded. My goals are:

1) Dominate the open file
2) Avoid trading heavy pieces
3) Improve my bishop
4) Attack his weak pawn on b4.

Not necessarily in that order. Well, maybe pretty much in that order.

In an ideal world, I get my queen behind my two rooks and just own the file, and use that penetration to torture his position. Realistically, on that file, I own squares 7 and 8, 5 and 6 are poison, 2 and 4 are vulnerable to booting by the bishop, and I can fight for 1 and 3. Putting the rooks on 7 and 8 first would allow me to fight for 1 and 3, but that'd also take an extra tempo to then clear room for the queen. Rook to 7, Rook to 8, Rook to 3, another rook to 7, queen to b8, queen to a8. That's a minimum of 6 tempos to set up what I want, and he's not going to passively accept that.

I'm also worried about letting this battle rage with his bishop available to harass me, but mine still stuck. Maybe I do need to try and free the bishop first. Or maybe b5 to clear out the sixth square for me?

Hmm. There's more weakness in my position than I thought. Too much time to do anything positive, too many things to worry about. But staying positive is the key.

Ra2, just to tickle his position and dare him to boot me with the bishop.

hard to reconcile "grab the a-file" with "don't trade heavy pieces" since Ra1 trades at least one pair of rooks here. I think I would have preferred ...Qd6 which ties White's pieces down to protecting the b-pawn and stopping the ...e5-break, so ...Ra2 becomes an idea.

It's very important here that White controls the a1-square with his queen, so he basically can choose any time to trade rooks. While Black couldn't, for example if he had played ...Qd6 then Ra3 wins the a-file (though it would be OK because he would get to play ...e5 instead)

His rook is on 7th but he isnt threatening anything. If it eventually turns out to be annoying I can kick it out of the 7th file.

The first move I have to analyze is b5.

b5/rc8
xc6/Bxc6
Bb5/Bxb5( he threatens Bxf1 )

ok so no b5.

Be4 to pressure the c6 point then.

First I have to see if he can do something with Rfa8.

Be4/Rfa8
b5/ Ra3
Qc5...

mmm... since I dont really see any attack Im just going to play it safe and do Bc4, it may or may not be the optimal move but it at least keeps my 2nd file alone. It abandons the pressure I had on the c-file but in case of Re8 I can do Qb3 threatening Bxf7 not allowing him to do e5.

If ...Qd6 Qc5 and Black basically has to retreat. But I agree completely that Ra2 is incompatible with the goal of keeping the rooks on the board. Trading both pairs seems like the most natural continuation here.

I'm not sure how I feel about Bc4, here, since it just seems to get in the way. Ra1 seems like it'll have to happen soon. I can't say that I like a move like 22.Bb1, which is more made out of a sense of regret to lost kingside possibilities than any feeling that it's strong here.

White still looks better, but it's hard to see how to improve his position. I doubt he can tolerate ceding the a-file, and if both sets of rooks are traded as a result, Black plays b6-c5 at some point and the game is practically over.

Well he's tickled and you're booted. Now what?

I think val may be starting to drift a bit now. He had a chance to take over the a file with 22. Ra1 Rfa8 23. Rxa2 Rxa2 23. Ra1 when black's awkward queen position means white gets the a file. And the game still would have probably just been a draw but black would again be left completely passive.

Now, as played, after 22. Bc4 Ra7 black will be the one to win the a file since on 23. Ra1 Rfa8 24. Rxa7 Rxa7 25. Ra1 there's 25. .. Qb8->a8 and black will begin to be able to get some counterplay, admittedly token counterplay but counterplay all the same! Once again it should be just a dead draw but passive defense makes somebody more likely to make a mistake.

I think Bc4 just puts his piece on a worse square and gives black the a file!

I predict: Draw agreed on move 36.

I think Valenzuela has started with a large edge, and, feeling more comfortable avoiding complications and wanting to simplify has been happy to simplify, which has resulted in a reduction of his advantage each time. The game looks almost equal now. Just a couple of general observations without any real analysis:

1. the N trade (Nxd7) was bad on principle. Black was cramped, and even though the idea of good bishop vs. bad bishop is attractive, exchanges tend to be good for the cramped side. One idea might be to play Nc4 (hitting the Q)- e4-e5-Nd6, which would be powerful since there are no dark square bishops.

2. As others have mentioned, playing b4 without following up with b5 makes no positional sense. I think Val may have been stuck on the idea of keeping his pawns on the opp color as his bishop.

3. Again with the good bishop theme, what makes the bishop 'good' is that it has an unobstructed view of the kingside, and can also influence the queenside. As far as the bishop being better because its pawns are on dark squares, this is not as big a deal because the pawn structure isn't fixed. As black moves to free himself with pawn moves, this difference will be minimized.

4. Also, white's advantage consisted in better development which could be best exploited with concentrating on the kingside, which makes sense because of his bishop's position, and black's lack of kingside protection--his Q, N, B, and QR are all stuck on the queenside. If black is able to transfer his pieces to the kingside to defend, then queenside expansion would make sense.

Yea Kyle getting away with murder here after going Ne4. I predict a small Black edge in a few moves

Okay, now his bishop is in a slightly less optimal spot, and I can move my rook back to where it belongs. I feel like that accomplished something. Maybe it didn't.

I don't see how I can avoid trading rooks if he decides he wants to.
Ra7/Ra1 Ra8/Rxa7 Rxa7/Ra1 and I'm stuck trading them whether I want to or not. But avoiding the trades just gives him the open file and leaves me ugly and passive (well, uglier and passive-er).

Once we trade rooks, it's my horrible bishop against his isolated pawn, and I don't see how either of us can effectively exploit the other, so it's probably a drawy drawn draw.

Maybe I can do something with my queen here. I thought it was in a good spot here, but it's really just not doing anything but threatening a bunch of dark squares where nothing is happening and it can't go anywhere because they are guarded by pawns.

Well, I'm doing a bunch of rambling when it doesn't matter anyway because I have to move my rook first. If this was an OTB game, I'd spend another 15 minutes calculating a line that gets my queen to a dominating spot, and then proceed to go into that line without moving my rook out of en prise first. I call it the Mayhugh Maneuver.

Triple check to make sure there's no tactics that involve him sneaking that pawn up to b6 and forking me? Nope, think I'm good.

I think he is now looking to do Rfa8.

Anyway my plan is Qb3 to put pressure on f7 as well as preparing d5 planning to attack the king with the diagonal.

If he does Rfa8 I can do Rc3 defending the a3 square. However he can put his R on a1 thretening Rxf1 and then Bxf1 losing initiative( cant do Kxf1 because then Qxh2)

So im basically forced to do Ra1 and probably should have done it the move before.

Hmm. I think I'm pretty much doomed to exchange rooks here. I don't know why I thought I could hold the file just because I was there first. Lazy thinking, I guess. Plus I misunderestimated how poorly my queen is placed to fight for that file.

Assuming he intends to trade off all the rooks (and I've been bad at predicting what he wants to do so far)


The queen dominating the a-file concerns me quite a bit. I think I can probably hold a draw in this situation, but if I want to play for a win, I've got to do something good there. I need to put some damn pawns on some damn dark squares, which I've been talking about doing for 15 moves and never get around to accomplishing.

My realistic options for doing that immediately are b6, f6 and g5. I still don't want to move the b-pawn if I don't have to, because I don't want to weaken the c-pawn (though I guess with rooks off the board the semi-open file is less of a concern.) I like f6, because it supports an eventual e5. But of course weakening the e-pawn in the meantime really sucks. g5 doesn't really do anything to get my bishop out. It does create a dark escape square for my king, which may be key, and more importantly it doesn't weaken any pawns. Now that I look at it, it also blocks f4 for the moment, which will keep him easily generating any kingside play. But it weakens my king's protection significantly. I wonder if finding a way to exchange queens would be a good idea at that point. I don't see any way that can easily happen though.

Ick. This is all getting kinda ugly as I look further into the future. But fortunately, every time I do that, the future never looks like I predicted when I get there. So we'll just wing it when we get to it as always. If I end up losing, I'll just blame Ne4 as if that was somehow not also my fault.

But the file can be held--just by protecting the R@a7 with the queen after the first pair of rooks is exchanged, as Do It Right pointed out above). I wonder whether Kyle'll spot that when we reach that position, or whether he'll make the second exchange on autopilot.

ok so basically I exchanged rook because his rook cant annoy my queen now that is not backed up by another rook

Im doing Qb3 to put pressure on the diagonal, I think he is going with Qd6 and then I will do Rd1 planning to do d5. ( btw bankrank mate might eventually end up annoying me but for now I have the bishop protecting f1 and the queen protecting d1 square).

If he does b5 I will change the gameplan to attack his backward pawn, Im actually expecting him to be forced to do b5 eventually.

mmm...the problem is that my attack seems really slow, the good news is that I dont see having an attack either.

The diagonal looks pretty solid for black, imo. I'm not sure what white's expecting from this 'pressure.'

Huh? That seems like a very odd move to me. Did he just feel bad about my poorly placed queen and even the odds? Did he want to make sure there was absolutely no way I could play f6? I just don't get what the plan is here. And I just finished the page where Silman tells us in HRYC to yell "Rubbish!" when your opponent does something you didn't expect. If you didn't forsee it, it must not be a good move, right?

I've got some options for sure here. I can either improve my pawn structure or I can improve my standing on the a-file. I guess I don't need to improve on the a-file because Ra1 is now out of the picture for the moment anyway. Huzzah! All that scheming for the a-file and it's mine!

For pawn moves, f6 is right out. g5 is still an awfully risky move. Hey wait, e5 is an option finally! I've been wanting to play that anyway. Or no it isn't, his bishop/queen battery would gobble up the f7 pawn with check. Silman says "If you see a move you want to play, make it work" (though I haven't finished that page yet). Can I make e5 work? I can boot his bishop with b5, but that weakens the c-pawn, which i didn't want to do. I can play Be8 to protect f7, but that wastes time and gives him a chance to do something else.

hmm...

b5/Bd3 e5/

He can play d5, which means I don't get my pretty queen on e5 like I wanted. But my bishop is free.

b5/Bd3 e5/d5 cxd5/Qxd5 and then can I use all those pretty lines that have suddenly opened up? Qc3? His queen was awesome on c3, so can mine be.

b5/Bd3 e5/d5 cxd5/Qxd5 Bxb5/Ra1 ... nope, doesn't work, sacked too much...

b5/Bd3 e5/d5 e4/Bxe4 Qe5 ... no

How about just b5/Bd3 e5/d5 and I just do something less ambitious and settle for the blessed freedom of my bishop and quit trying to look for a knockout blow. He probably won't even play d5 anyway.

Suck to be you, a-file, I've forgotten about you already.