Hey Laughing Vulcan,

I agree with you that it's an educational game. Because you said you like comments on the game, I'd like to give my view on two positions I found interesting. (I hope you take these as constructive remarks. It's not my intention to bash your moves.)

Position 1



Analysis with a chess engine already made it clear to you that it's much better to take on d5 with the pawn. However, in the video you don't state clearly why this is the case, so I wonder if you fully understood the point. Therefore, lets look at it again after the capture:



It's now black to move and both the knight on c6 and the bischop on c5 are under attack by a white pawn. Black can only move one piece to safety. Black also cannot (favorably) take the white pawn on d4, because it's protected by both the white knight and queen. So white is winning a piece!

You will find out that the situation where two pieces are under attack at the same time comes up a lot when there are lots of exchanges going on at once. At first you might have difficulty calculating the different variations. But it's also clear it's a good idea to spend some extra time in these positions, because there's a often a way to win (or not lose) material. I'd also like to point out that there's sometimes a way for black to get out of his precarious situation when two pieces are under attack at the same time - by moving one of the pieces with tempo. I.e. if there is a move with the knight for example that creates a bigger threat to white than the threat of losing the bishop is to black.

Position 2



It's white to move. Refrain from giving checks with the rook in this position, because you're only helping black. There is no way for the white rook to checkmate the black king or even to force the black king to a worse position. Quite the opposite: you're helping the black king get to a better position by repeatedly giving check.

What's even worse, the white knight is still under attack and eventually your rook is attacked by the black king. Now you have to decide what piece to save and what piece to lose.

Steve Farmer thought us about "Patzer sees a check, gives a check" in a few of his videos. The lesson is important here too. Only give a check when you have something to gain. Otherwise, you have more important things to spend your move on.

At 15:10 there was no need to move your rook to c1, you had a chance to save a tempo by pushing the g-pawn and queening faster without that useless rook move.

Apart from the tactical points raised already, I think swapping your knight for his bishop to go into the pure rook endgame was a big mistake.

Your knight was a much stronger piece than his bishop, which was blocked in by all his pawns. You mentioned that it defends the pawns well, which it does, but it won't be able to do anything else until he spends quite a few tempi moving his pawns to let the bishop out. In the meantime, you should be able to make some headway with your kingside pawns using your knight and rook. As well as swapping your good piece for his bad one, the swap also undoubled his pawns which made it much easier to get a passed pawn on the queenside.

Still an interesting game, I particularly liked the theme of the two pawns steamrolling the rook.

I do appreciate the comments, and you're right - I hadn't fully analyzed through the logic of taking with the pawn forcing a bishop capture for the pawn. Thanks!

Very true - I can't argue that I got very lucky at the point Black played Ke8 that his plan was to reinforce his Bishop instead of forcing out what would have been the win. And players shouldn't have to rely on luck. ;) On the other other hand, I couldn't see a strategy that would lead to a win and by that point I was looking first and foremost to not lose. (Move 24. Rd7 is evaluated as 0.00 and best move, this was move 27, and by move 34 I had regained equality - though that took Black's help. ;) )
Perhaps I would describe that sequence as, "Patzer sees no win on the board, Patzer tries to shake something loose by sequential checking." Not good strategy as you pointed out. :)
But thanks again for your comments, and the correct depth analysis. :D


Thanks for the comment! While one can rely too heavily on engine analysis, Rc1 is evaluated by Fritz 12 as the best move at that point out to depth 26. g5 and h4 are tied for second and third place well behind them. At depth 24 h4 becomes better than Rc1, but g5 still ranks behind it, but again at depth 25 Rc1 is the best.

Rc1 forces Black to waste at least one tempo taking out the Rook, and in Fritz' best line may allow White a perpetual. Pushing the g pawn will allow White to Queen the h pawn, but in the interim Black is able to push the a pawn to where it will promote with Black's Rook intact.

This is move 47, and you can check the analysis at http://laughingvulcan.org/chess/games/pawns/base.htm

Thanks for posting, though! I appreciate it.



Very true - that was a major mistake. Black can free his Bishop with c6-Bd7 (or e8), but if I had played a4 first he would have some work to make that happen, and in one line he'd have had to play Ba7 instead. ;) Every best line seems to lead to a promotion for White... if I hadn't swapped Bishop for Knight.

Thanks for the comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the game.

Hi, Darren. You played better in this game than in previous games that you've posted. In previous games, you were very aggressive very early in the game, whereas this time you didn't make that mistake. Also, in previous games, you missed easy tactics, whereas here, your errors were more strategic than tactical (although as "ThereIsNoFork" pointed out, you missed a chance to threaten 2 Black pieces simultaneously by playing exd5(B) instead of Bxd5). Nevertheless, you have improved. Keep up the good work!