If anyone follows my games with White please note that I am not playing a secret cutting edge line, but rather try to get out of book no matter what in order to avoid 25 moves of theory.
(September 11th, 2014, 07:01)Gustaran Wrote: If anyone follows my games with White please note that I am not playing a secret cutting edge line, but rather try to get out of book no matter what in order to avoid 25 moves of theory.
Spoiler for anyone but Gustaran:
I was very surprised when you moved your Queen so early against Zak. I've always been scared to since someone really good told me its a bad idea . Was I mislead or was 3. Qe2 more in line with getting out of book?
(September 11th, 2014, 07:01)Gustaran Wrote: If anyone follows my games with White please note that I am not playing a secret cutting edge line, but rather try to get out of book no matter what in order to avoid 25 moves of theory.
I did do a double-take at Qe2, but it looks pretty interesting.
I was very surprised when you moved your Queen so early against Zak. I've always been scared to since someone really good told me its a bad idea . Was I mislead or was 3. Qe2 more in line with getting out of book?
Darrell
@Darrell
You are completely right, moving the queen so early is usually not a great idea, though it's not as dangerous with White since you have an extra tempo (I wouldn't have done it with Black).
Just to give you an idea: I have 31355 games with 3.Nxe5 in my database as opposed to 64 after 3.Qe2.
Obviously if you play without databases 3.Nxe5 is superior to Qe2, but as I said I just felt like playing a game without lots of theory this time.
(October 1st, 2014, 14:45)Jkaen Wrote: It really is a waste of time me being in this tournament, is anybody actually enjoying their games against me, or should i just withdraw and play people my own level?
Anyone is welcome to join the tournament. As long as you enjoy playing stronger players, I don't have a problem. (just looking at some numbers, you actually are already better than 77% of all players @chess.com).
I have an extra pawn and a slightly better pawn structure, but I must probably be accurate to avoid a drawn rook endgame. I gave up the bishop pair a couple of moves back because I couldn't find a better way to get my pieces out while protecting my c7 weakness. On the up side, we won't be ending up in an opposite-colored bishops endgame. (It also created his isolated d-pawn, that I figured could be a target.) Short term goals are to undouble my c-pawns and put pressure on that isolated pawn. Should be a good position for me if I can play it correctly.
It felt like a very silly mistake to allow him to pin my knight with Bg5, but somehow he didn't capitalize on that. Perhaps it wasn't objectively so bad - just annoying. I guess his questionable queen placement hindered his development enough that I could solve my own problems in the meantime. The current position seems pretty equal. I like that my rooks are connected, but it should only take him one move to connect his own rooks, so I can hardly argue that it's a tangible advantage. I think I have good drawing chances here, and probably nothing more. I guess I will centralize my queen on c5, try to pressure his f2 pawn, and see what comes of it. If he goes Qd3 I can go Rd8, so actually he is a bit passive and uncoordinated.
Not a lot of excitement yet, as we're just about leaving theory. Maybe I have a tiny edge due to my grip on the center, but this could go anywhere. (A draw seems likely, as always, though.)
Another fun endgame where I might be able to secure a win with perfect play. He played a Vienna opening, which apparently leads to lively positions, and I grabbed a pawn in the tactical melee. I was pretty happy with the bishop c8-f5-e4 maneuver on moves 11-12 that allowed me to hang on to that pawn; just posting the bishop on e6 looked more natural, but I think it would be insufficient. 17. ... g5 may have been dubious, but in the resulting complications I was able to get the rooks off, as well as his bishop pair, so I think it worked out well enough. Maybe he expected Rxe1 instead of Bxc2 on move 24? That extra tempo was quite valuable.
(October 1st, 2014, 14:45)Jkaen Wrote: It really is a waste of time me being in this tournament, is anybody actually enjoying their games against me, or should i just withdraw and play people my own level?
I'll just add that one has to put up with far worse in real-life chess tournaments. I remember one time were I had to wait for over an hour to checkmate a K+Q vs K. So you concern is quite silly in the first place... Everyone who signed up implicitly agreed to deal with things like that because they already have.
