TopNotch wrote on 05/22/08 at 01:01:59:
linksspringer wrote on 05/21/08 at 09:36:53:
[quote author=TopNotch link=1209856655/90#93 date=1211353577]
As to the Prie-variation, I haven't seen a refutation of the earlier c5 yet (9.Bxd4 Qe6+ 10.Be2 c5 11.Qa4 cxd4 12.Qxa7 Qe5). As far as I can see white has nothing better than to repeat moves or else be at a disadvantage. General considerations don't help much, both sides have direct threats that need to be analysed.
There are very few games to go by and like you I have not seen any official refutation of
10...c5 as yet, but I can tell you I don't regard the move very highly as
I do not see how this way of regaining the piece improves Black's king position, if anything, it makes it worse. If white plays 11.Qa4, this way of regaining the piece has the advantage that white's king isn't safe either. Moreover, getting c5 in slows down white's pawn storm after 11.Nd2 Rxd4!
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I have 4 games on my database with 10...c5 and Black scores an impressive 3 out of 4 but two of the games were contested between unrated players on the playchess server, 0-1 in both cases, however there is no indication of the time control used, the other two games featured a 1600+ vs a 1800+ draw and a 2300 vs a 2500+ draw. The last of these games mentioned I consider more important based on the moves and the ratings of the players involved, this game featured 11.Nc3 instead of 11.Qa4 so perhaps you should also investigate that. Personally I prefer 11.Nd2 which I reckon to be quite promising for White, so you can also add that to the list of candidate moves to examine carefully. Let us know your conclusions when you have fully explored these various avenues of attack for White.
In fact
11.Nd2 was already touched upon in this thread, Michael Ayton was the first to mention
11...Rxd4! Here is a crude attempt by white to force open the b-file:
12.Qa4 Qb6! 13.Nf3 Rd8 14.O-O e6 15.a3 Kb8! 16.b4 Nf6 17.Rfb1 Qc7! 18.Rb2 g5!? 19.bxc5 Bxc5 20.Rab1 b6 and black is on top.
edit: A better attempt would be 13.Nb3 intending 0-0, Bf3, Na5, a3 and b4. But then black could play 13...Rd7 14.0-0 Nf6 15.Bf3 e5!
I will come back to 11.Nc3 later.
edit: I had a quick look at
11.Nc3 in Jurkovic - Nevednichy. Without going into variations, I would already say from general considerations that this line is a lot less risky for black than the Prie stuff. And I think black can do even better than in the actual game.
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General considerations may not help you that much,
That is not fair. I was talking about the position after 11.Qa4 cxd4 12.Qxa7 Qe5 where concrete analysis becomes much more important.
Quote: but they do me, it is an extension of my intuition and provides clues as to what I should be focussing on when selecting the appropriate candidate moves. Once satisfied that I have a good grasp for the demands of the position, I use concrete analysis to validate or adjust my thinking. It is difficult to find the right continuations in a complex position unless you have a good feeling for the overall strategic and tactical elements present, for e.g, mobile pawn majority, weaker kings position, unopposed bishop etc., without such generalisations to help guide your thoughts and analysis you are likely very often to miss the wood for the trees. Our silicon friends by virtue of brute force have no need for generalisations to find the correct move or sequence of moves, but we carbon based beings require more subtle and varied methods.
As an experiment I let Fritz, Junior and Hiarcs run overnight on a position discussed earlier in this thread and none of them found the exchange sacrifice that proved so crushing.
Yet it took me only 10 minutes to intuitively find the idea and half hour to validate it through analysis, and the engines once steered in that direction all concurred with me.
I strongly believe that as our ability to evaluate a position based on 'general considerations' improves, the more likely it is that one will also find the most promising continuations through analysis, as these two skills when developed in unison tend to compliment each other perfectly.
Toppy
Yes, an impressive victory of human intuition and general understanding over silicon!
And let me add I am grateful for the master class. I am learning from this, even if it doesn't show.
Pages: 
1.e4 d5 2.exd5 Qxd5 3.d4 Nc6 4.Nf3 (Read 12751 times)
