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Very Hot Topic (More than 25 Replies) Terrible play... some advice ? (Read 33368 times)
ErictheRed
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #10 - 02/06/14 at 10:43:49
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I like John's point about the unopposed dark-squared bishop.  After move 10, Black's DSB became quite bad, but since it is his unopposed bishop you should be extra careful to keep it passive.  In a long-term sense you should be thinking about exchanging light-squared bishops and angling for a good knight vs. terrible bishop positions (with a ton of extra space to boot).  

The one game with these totally blocked kingsides (as could happen after 15.h5 g5 in your game) that I always think of is: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1070619.  ;

Bareev annotated it in Dvoretsky's Positional Play.  Black's position was so desperate that he had to give up a piece for complications, and even then White was for choice, then just winning.  It took an incredible amount of "Kasparovness" for Black not to lose that game.  In my head, I imagine that if Black wasn't the reigning World Champ with all of his intimidating body language, etc, that Bareev would have scored the full point.
  
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IMJohnCox
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #9 - 02/06/14 at 01:04:50
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In reply to the OP; you've received some good advice but I'd also say that gxf6 was, as you point out yourself, a truly terrible move. This structure is not good for White unless he can dominate f4 and g5 and basically win in the attack; in any kind of endgame it's terrible. And you're never going to manage that when your opponent has an unopposed dark-squared bishop, which you've just freed at a stroke. 

This is for some reason not obvious at first sight; I remember once making the same kind of mistake myself.

Also (others have said this I know), when you say that ...g6 is good because it prepares to lock up the position, this suggests to me that you really don't understand these positions at all. If the kingside is locked up by h5 g5 then Black can essentially resign; White just prepares and pushes forward on the queenside, and Black is crushed. ...g6 may or may not be a good move, but it certainly isn't a good move because it prepares to close the kingside.

In fact, you're quite right to agonise about this game, I would say, because it's precisely the sort of game which offers excellent opportunities to understand things you presently don't and hence improve. I wouldn't say giving up the opening was the right response, though.
  
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ErictheRed
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #8 - 02/04/14 at 18:09:30
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barnaby wrote on 02/04/14 at 17:51:33:
like colonel dax trying to take the ant hill, that king deserves a medal for bravey 

nice game


More like he deserves a court martial for desertion!
  
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barnaby
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #7 - 02/04/14 at 17:51:33
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like colonel dax trying to take the ant hill, that king deserves a medal for bravey 

nice game
  
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ErictheRed
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #6 - 02/04/14 at 17:42:39
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Not exactly a high-quality game, but you get the idea:

  
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kylemeister
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #5 - 02/04/14 at 17:18:21
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I too was reminded of Spassky-Kavalek, but regarding the d5-e4-g4-h5 clamp I thought of Larsen-Hort, San Antonio 1972   Smiley
  
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Aziridine
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #4 - 02/04/14 at 17:00:35
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It's OK, we all lose games like this from time to time because our positional understanding is never perfect. At least these losses show us clearly where our deficiencies are.
Petrosian - Schweber, Stockholm 1962 is the classic reference game for the d5-e4-g4-h5 clamp Eric is talking about. Spassky - Kavalek, Montreal 1979 is the textbook example of how to play the g5/...h5 pawn structure. Both games are required study for playing 1.d4 Smiley
One gets the impression from looking at moves 10-15 that you were a bit anxious to force the play. Exploiting a long-term advantage like space in a closed position often requires patience. Spassky's game is a particularly good example of that.
  
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MartinC
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #3 - 02/04/14 at 13:58:10
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Plenty I'm not sure about, partially no doubt because its hard Smiley 

Most importantly I think you have to sort your expectations of this sort of thing - black often plays slowly like this in Tromp/Torre positions and you can't really take him apart in response. Sometimes with d4/e4/f4 pawn centers I guess.

Black didn't go a5 to attack, he's just securing the knight on c5 so Bb5+ really just helped it on its way and stuck your bishop on a slightly odd square.

If you do feel the need to win quickly then fixing the structure with moves like 10 d5 isn't going to help. You do that sort of thing for long term goals. Like the queenside white squares.

As for 12.. o-o - yes really? Where's whites attack? 

Not an awful lot supporting it really. 13 g4 makes plenty of positional sense to clamp down on f5 ideas from black.

Mating him fast isn't on the agenda until you get more pieces involved. A knight on f5 maybe etc. Tie him down first then kill.

13.. g6 actually looks a lot like panic to me. As Eric says, 14 h5 to fix that bit of the structure too and torture black would be nigh on winning in practical terms. Horrible to play as black.

Is an immediate white attack really doing anything if black just goes 13.. Nc5 maybe dreaming of Ba6 etc instead? Black may well be roughly OK there.
(or maybe Re8 to allow Nf8 etc, although that's rather passive.).
  
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hicetnunc
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #2 - 02/04/14 at 11:47:34
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Thanks Eric for taking the time to reply to my rant... It's much appreciated, especially since I hold your posts here in high regard.

I don't blame the opening of course, but I realize my pawn play was disastrous in that game. Your advice makes sense, and I think I'm going to focus on middlegame pawn play in the coming months. 

Will have a look at the books you recommend. Thank you again (and you're right I freaked out, but I think I haven't played that bad for a long time...)  Smiley
  

48 yo, 1920 elo
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ErictheRed
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Re: Terrible play... some advice ?
Reply #1 - 02/04/14 at 11:39:05
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Read Pawn Structure Chess.

Just kidding! (Kind of).  I think that you're freaking out a little bit, but blaming the opening for the result of this game is entirely misguided.  You should probably study "positional play" and "dynamic play," judging only from this one game.  

You got an excellent position out of the opening, with a very large lead in development.  I might have played 10.g4, 10.h4, or just 10.Kb1!?; in essence you want to open lines when ahead in development, right?   Sometimes chess is an easy game...except that there's no easy way to open lines just yet.  So you gain space, play flexibly, and see how Black proceeds.  The last thing I'd think about is closing lines with 10.d5 e5--though admittedly this isn't so bad right now, as Black has weakened his queenside squares tremendously.

You still had a very large positional advantage after that move (now is the time to turn to Pawn Structure Chess); it's similar to a King's Indian or Old Indian Defense.  On move 15 there was no reason to close lines, though--why did you play 15.g5?  The move makes sense if you have some kind of piece-for-two-pawns followup sac on h5 to attack the king, but you don't.  You can continue maneuvering slowly with 15.Kb1, 16.Ne2 (intending to go to g3 and preparing to gain more space with c2-c4 at some point).  You're clearly better.

In fact, one move I'd seriously consider, since you've already closed the center, is 15.h5!?.  Now if 15...g5 Black has about the worst dark-squared bishop possible and his f5-square is weak (in fact, ALL of his light squares are weak).  You can then proceed with the Ne2-g3 maneuver, Kc1-b1 and possibly a1, c2-c4, Put your rooks on the b and c-files, and eventually break through on the queenside.  It's just a King's Indian gone irrevocably wrong, and I think that White's strategically winning after 15.h5 g5.  

By the way, I'm surprised that on move 14 you say "I'm surprised that I couldn't find a way to a clear advantage."  You have a clear advantage, and it's quite large; that comment is very telling to me.  Study some King's Indian-type structures and you'll see that Black has absolutely zero counterplay in your game, while you can build up, gain space, and break through at your leisure.  Honestly, to me it looks like you're pretty much "strategically winning."  Those kinds of positions are the reason I play 1.d4.

So...maybe read Pawn Structure Chess and Dynamic Chess Strategy?  Me recommending Soltis' book has become almost a running joke on this forum, but games like this are exactly the reason I recommend it.
  
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hicetnunc
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Terrible play... some advice ?
02/04/14 at 10:10:49
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Hi, I've been playing the Torre attack for 1,5 years with satisfactory results, but this week-end, I played a terrible game which made me think about my approach to the opening :



The Torre is not really about variations (okay there are some), but about being able to play a 'normal position'. In this game, it looked like I made all the wrong positional decisions (10.d5?!; 15.g5?!; 18.Bxd7?; 21.gxf6?).

So I wonder what would the best way to tackle these weaknesses in my play ? Of course, I could just go back in the hole and avoid those positions (I could play c3/Nbd2 instead of Nc3).

OTOH, I find a bit vexing to be unable to play these normal positions decently, so I wonder if I shouldn't just go over some good games focusing on pawn breaks ?!

Anybody met a similar problem in his chess life ?  Smiley
  

48 yo, 1920 elo
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