closed

completely

Momus,

As regards your reply to my post:

1. Dennis stated in his video that he failed to calculate beyond 17. Nd4 Nxe5. I quite readily understood that 15... Ng6, although a blemish on an otherwise imperfect game, is a common thematic move in the Berlin, even if it doesn't work in this one single instance of the opening.

2. I think you're completely off-base that he played without respect for his opponent. One need not play flawless chess to respect one's opponent: we haven't even considered the ramifications of whether 1... e5 or 2... Nc6 are flawless, either.

3. I think that Dennis played quite well in this game. You think that he played poorly. Who's to judge?

4. Yes, his opponent likewise misevaluated the 17. Nd4 variation. I guess it's fortunate that not all humans play like Fritz or Shredder.

5. Actually, my confusion regards your understanding of the lecture and your consequent posts. I understand that having seen this game, I hope to never play 15... Ng6 in my games, and I think most attentive viewers also understand this point. I did enjoy the middlegame & endgame play that followed, and this inspires me to look for other master games on the Berlin in order to learn what moves are considered best in the opening.

6. I used the phrase "devil's advocate" because it was 100% clear in his lecture that he "saw" (briefly considered) 17. Nd4 Nxe5, and yet you're telling him he didn't "see" it just because he didn't fully calculate it. I wouldn't call this carelessness; I would call it an oversight, the same way Dennis referred to it in his video, because I've made oversights--sometimes even hanging pawns or pieces--which I clearly don't intend to make, but happen in spite of my best efforts. Even Kasparov did this from time to time (even committing oversights that lose the game!); it's human error.


7. At the same time, is it right to be cynical and distrusting of experts' ideas just because they are experts? Should we turn to the blind instead to lead us? At what point have we become too critical of the demands or expectations that we put on others; at what point is it destructive to wholly rely on oneself as a point of reference? There is a balance to be made; not everything that is said (by everyone) can or should be trusted, but it's likewise rather destructive to distrust others without careful consideration; e.g. "Just because I didn't care for this video so much, I'm never going to play the Berlin, even if it actually happens to be a good opening." It's possible to pick up a good opening for the wrong reasons, but it's also possible to discard a good opening for the wrong reasons.

Perhaps my note isn't of as kind a nature as yours, but I hope it was enough to get my ideas across.

Sincerely,
Dan

DandyDanD: Thanks again!

Hi momus,

I don't really understand your point. I think it's a good game which, together with the presentation, helps convey some of the strategic ideas behind the Berlin, but I certainly didn't claim that my play was error-free. What I do claim is that the early exchange of errors (which aren't "blunders" by any normal use of that term in chess literature - more on that below) render the game imperfect (duh) but not without value. The game maintains a normal Berlin character after that.

Here's an imperfect but useful analogy. Suppose a game went like this: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Ba6?? Ba3?? 4.Bc4 Bc5 (transposing to the position that would result from 3.Bc4 Bc5) and everything continued normally from there. Would the whole game be worthless on account of the players' third move? It would be very strange, yes, but the game from move four on might turn out to be brilliant, instructive, suitable for further study, etc. Of course, the errors in my game were nothing like this, and in fact, even my 15th move and White's failure to take advantage prove instructive on a number of levels.

On "blunders": no, I don't think that "all blunders [are] merely inaccuracies". That's one of the points I've been trying to make. That's why we have different punctuation marks for errors: ?!, ? and ??. I'd put 15...Ng6 in the ?! category; a blunder would receive ??. Losing the piece would deserve '?' or '??', but 15...Ng6 doesn't lose a piece. Are my opponent and I guilty of a sort of blunder-by-omission in our thinking? Perhaps. We definitely missed something important. We're human, we're fallible, etc. How this shows a problem with the presentation or the opening is beyond me.

bored

totally

Hi momus,

This game is excerpted on youtube because an administrator on this site posted it; I only discovered it later on.

I don't know who "someone" is (you?), but I don't see how citing another person's unargued opinion advances the discussion. Nor do I understand what error was committed but unacknowledged, since I point out in the video that 15...Ng6 is inaccurate and that 15...c5 is best*, that 17.Nd4 was strong, and that over the board I missed that 17...Nxe5 was an unacceptable reply due to 18.f4.

The other point which you seem to be making heavy wind over is my missing and not missing 17.Nd4. (This occurs starting at about 14:45 in the video.) I say "However, the move that I missed, and he missed too - I mean, I saw it, but we both just completely neglected to calculate it - was Nd4." You seem to interpret this as some sort of sinister lie or at least double-speak, but it's pretty obvious that I'm clarifying/correcting myself. We both saw the move (which should be obvious, as I reiterate throughout the first part of the video that White would like to play Nd4 to get the kingside majority rolling and to swap off the Be6, while his move was Ne2 with the idea of Nfd4, etc.), but wrongly assumed it was unplayable.

Are there better games to present? Sure, but my programs here are typically based on my games. You or "someone" are certainly welcome to do a Berlin video on here, and if that happens, please let me know; I'm happy to learn from others.

* I do this immediately; in fact, I present the right move (15...c5), as the right move, before showing what I played. (Approx. 12:18 in the video.)

tiring

Momus can waste others' time; my subsequent responses (if any) will be very brief. (It's very strange that I've been singled out; the author's nickname alludes to the Greek god of mockery, and his only comments have been on this thread. It suggests that this is someone who has a bone to pick with me from somewhere else. If so, I apologize to the chessvideos.tv community that someone's personal animus against me has infected this site.) I will answer the first question, primarily because it confuses two very distinct matters and might mislead less experienced readers and viewers.

First, addressing one of the many gratuitous insults, I don't think ...Ng6 with its accompanying ideas is a plan of a "weakie". It's a logical and thematic move, and both it and its underlying plan are common in the Berlin. The particular move in the particular position is a mistake, but that only shows that it's not enough to have a good idea, but that the idea must be implemented successfully.

And now the confusion: the plan of artificial castling on the queenside is distinct from ...Ng6. The former began with 9...Bd7, a move and plan which is common in the Berlin, utilized by players like Kramnik, Almasi, Aleksandrov, Mitkov, Ivanchuk, Carlsen and others. As noted in the video, 15...c5 (instead of the infamous 15...Ng6) reaches a known and important theoretical position, but with the moves ...a5 and a4 inserted - an insertion that favors Black. To note just one game of many, there's Anand-Kramnik, Mainz 2001, won by Kramnik in 27 moves. So my plan was in fact that of a "strongie"!

tiresome

Are you sure that this is all you have done?

really

Momus,

Re "Momus", see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Momus

Re "malign", re-read my post - it was phrased as a conditional (an "if"-statement), not an assertion.

I note that you've dropped the claim that my plan of castling by hand was weak. That's progress, even if you're not living up to your recommendations about admitting error. No matter, progress is progress.

Underneath the rhetorical baggage, you raise a new and genuinely interesting pair of questions: (1) Why think the insertion of ...a5 and a4 is good for Black? (2) If it is good, then why don't Kramnik and the rest play it? In fact, both points are addressed in the video itself, but I'll offer a quick answer here.

On (1): Pros for Black: White's queenside pawn structure becomes inflexible (none of the pawns can safely move) and seriously endangered in the long-term, as they can be vulnerable to Black's light-squared bishop. In fact, this sort of problem is a common one in Berlin endings. A second benefit is that Black can often favorably play ...Bb4, as in the game. Is there a con for Black? Yes, there are a couple of potential drawbacks. One is that it can become more difficult to safely achieve ...b5, and a second is that Black's queenside pawn structure could be vulnerable to a dark-squared bishop in the same way as White's is to a light-squared bishop. The first drawback is genuine but can be overcome and is usually less serious than the benefit. As for the second drawback, there are two big differences between White's situation and Black's. The first is that Black's king is in the midst of the pawns, making it much harder for them to be attacked. And the second is that Black also has a dark-squared bishop, so White's remaining bishop isn't going to have nearly as easy a time of it.

On (2): Ok, if that's so wonderful for Black, then how come it's not in the Anand-Kramnik game and the rest? The probable answer is not that the inclusion of ...a5 and a4 favors White, but that White doesn't need to play a4 in reply (though he sometimes plays it anyway). At any rate, while Kramnik hasn't used 13...a5, a number of very strong grandmasters have, such as I. Sokolov, Lautier, Ki. Georgiev, Sakaev and Krasenkow.

In sum, the plan of artificial castling is fine, as is the insertion of ...a5 and a4. What's critical here for evaluating this line is perhaps 14.Rd3, trying to show that Black's "threat" of ...Bb4 isn't all that serious.

I do mean really

Unfortunately, my response was lost due to a server timeout, but here's the highlights of what I wrote:

I found some statements less-than-constructive: some seemed to serve no other purpose than damaging another person's character. I hope not to dwell on the past, but for future reference I'll suggest that online, it's easy to misinterpret statements as personal attacks, ergo it's especially important to carefully consider how things are said.

Forums are a venue for constructive dialogue, where (in principle) one party recognizes other parties' points, puts them in perspective, and offers one's own evaluation. I hope that I (and others) can set a reasonably good example for others to follow; contest situations are far less pleasant than constructive dialogue.

- Dan