Smyslov_Fan wrote on 08/14/13 at 15:47:41:
Sloughter, just focus on what you think was the key moment in your game. Give us a diagram, explain why it was the key moment, and get rid of the rest of the moves.
I will come back later and clean up this thread.
Fourteen years ago I introduced the concept of universal positions. They are among the most common positions in all of chess, and, perhaps the most important. They can be reached from Classical Chess or Hypermodern chess. Universal chess is the third major school of chess. The only universal position commonly played with White is the King's Indian Saemisch, 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.f3 (You will observe that White has all his pieces in back of his pawns, there are fewer than two half open files or one open file and no piece is farther advanced that the farthest advanced pawn. I define this as a universal position. Houdini 3 Pro is so deadly because it understands how to switch from Classical chess to Universal chess back to Classical chess. Watch how often Houdini 3 Pro plays universal positions in this variation of the Two Knights' Defense:
8.Qf3 Bb7?! (This is a rock solid developing move that Houdini 3 Pro greatly prefers to any other variation even though it is not in ECO Edition 5 or MCO 15; Houdini sees long-term positional compensation anchored on its understanding of universal positions; since I lost the first 8...Bb7 game, I thought I'd try a second time, which I soon lost. Here is the third try) 9.Ba4 Be7 10.O-O O-O 11.d3 (You will observe that both sides are playing Classical chess) c5 12.Qe2 (The first piece steps in back of the pawn wall) Nc6 (The Knight steps in back of the pawns) 13.c3 (Preparing Bc2)
Universal positions are so common that in one issue of Inside Chess, I counted over 50 Universal positions that occurred in just one issue. I first began to study them in 1994 when I played 30 postal games with the same first five moves 1...g6/2...Bg7/3...e6/4...Ne7/5...O-O. I call this the Universal Attack because it can be used against any opening. It is always followed by d5, never d6 distinguishing it from a Modern, Rat, or Hippo.
13...Nd5 (Houdini 3 Pro just achieved a Universal Position).
Only one Grandmaster, to the best of my knowledge, fully understands Universal positions---former World Champion Anatoly Karpov. His understanding of chess is so profound that it prompted the editor of Inside Chess to say (paraphrasing him) Yasser Seirawan, “Karpov is the most confounding player of all times; he has all his pieces on the first and second rank and yet White is better.” That is because he had a universal position. The only game I have ever seen where both players played universal chess the entire game was a game Karpov-Ivanchuk where the only time Karpov stepped out of a UP was to exchange Queens)
14.Nf3 f6 (This is a loss of time because Black will have to play f5 in two moves) 14.Bc2 (White is one move away from a UP) 15.Bc2 Qd7 16.Rd1 Rac8 17.h3 Kh8 18.Ne1! (A UP) Nd8! & Houdini prefers Black. Despite being a pawn up, White must fight for the draw because Black has a powerful Kingside attack.