Originally posted by exigentskyWhen I analyze I look for mistakes from both sides...I don't really know why its just how I have always done it.
When you guys analyze for yourselves, do you do it only from your perspective? For example, if you're White, do you only try to find better moves for White? So far, I've only done it from my perspective but I'm wondering if this is a good idea.
Originally posted by tomtom232It's definately good to look for better/alternative possible moves from both sides for a range of reasons. Most notably, if you play a small variety of openings and often have middle games with similar themes and ideas running through them it is useful to have some knowledge of your opponents best possible strategies and how to counter them.
When I analyze I look for mistakes from both sides...I don't really know why its just how I have always done it.
Here's one of my latest games. Anybody who can spot mistakes in my analysis, I'd be very grateful for any followup posts!
Game 4238414
[Event "Clan challenge"]
[Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2007.11.07"]
[EndDate "2008.02.24"]
[Round "?"]
[White "agentreno"]
[Black "lastpawnstanding"]
[WhiteRating "1348"]
[BlackRating "1251"]
[Result "0-1"]
[GameId "4238414"]
Philidor's Defence
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6
A solid opening but I've never had much respect for this pawn move that intentionally blocks in the dark squared bishop. Nc6 is the principle response.
3. d4 exd4
Me and my opponent gain the half open d and e files respectively. By giving up his share of the centre, my opponent accepts less space but his position is solid with no weaknesses.
4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 h6?!
My opponent deviates immediately with a non-developing move. The motivation appears to be keeping my pieces off g5. Perhaps he did not want to face a pin via Bg5. Nevertheless, Black should have continued his development with Be7 and O-O. I will try to develop rapidly to take advantage of this lag in development.
5. Bc4 a6?! 6. O-O c5?
Black wasted more time with a6 and now he makes his 4th pawn move, asserting control over d4 at the cost of the weakening the d5 square and a backward pawn on d6. My knight is attacked and I must move it - I return it to it's post on f3. I now feel perhaps that it may have been better on f5 when Bxf5 would have opened the e-file and given me the bishop pair as well as guaranteed control over d5. g6 could have been answered by Ne3 or Ng3.
7. Nf3 b5 8. Be2 Be7
Black gained space on the queenside and as such, I found it hard to find a good post for my light squared bishop. 8. Bd5 Nxd5 would have given up my bishop pair and covered Black's backward pawn with a weak pawn of my own.There is also a threat to my e-pawn, 9. .. b4 followed by Nb1 or Nd5 would both drop the e-pawn. I made my next move in the hope of discouraging the removal of this pawn when pressure can be directed against the uncastled king along the opened e-file.
9. Re1 Bb7 10. Bf1 O-O
Since I had trouble finding a decent post for the light squared bishop and my sickly e-pawn needed attention, I felt Bf1 at least put the bishop to the task of defending g2 and allowed me to use the e-file to protect my pawn and accelerate any future actions should the e-pawn disappear. At this point I believe I overestimated the familiar principle of attacking in the centre by allowing my opponent to liquidate his weak d6 pawn. I now see that my following move threw away my space advantage, removed Black's weak pawn, and unblocked the long diagonal for Black's light squared bishop. This opening of the centre would only have been consistent if Black's king had still been in the centre after his development lag - trouble was I had allowed him to castle to safety by now.
11. e5? dxe5 12. Nxe5 Nh7?
Perhaps he'd like his knight on g5? Clearing the f6 square to allow his bishop to occupy the other long diagonal? His move allowed my queen to approach his kingside but I've since decided that the position does not call for an attack on his king - the bishop and knight can perfectly well protect his majesty. Perhaps Qe2 to make some threats down the e-file and avoiding the queen swap while preparing to develop the dark squared bishop and occupy the d-file with a rook?
13. Qg5 Bf6? 14. Bxh6 c4
Black blunders his h pawn but the attack is going nowhere - g7 is sufficiently defended and my queen obstructs my knight's participation in this attack. Bringing up more forces will take time - I turn my attention to my control of central files instead content with the win of a pawn.
15. Rad1 Qc8 16. Qxc8 Rxc8
Swapping off material favours the side with more material and the c-file is not a particularly useful place for Black's rook. In the absence of other factors (there are no majorities, weak pawns, minor piece imbalances) I decide to improve the position of my rook by bringing it to the seventh rank.
17. Bf4 Nc6 18. Rd7 Bxe5 19. Bxe5 Nxe5 20. Rxb7 Ng4
My opponent simplifies the position and I opt to remove bishop, as I would like to be the sole possessor of a bishop on an open board. I also felt it was one of his better placed pieces. It seems to me that Ng6 or Nc6 would have been better for Black where he would have prevented my other rook reaching his seventh rank. There is not much the knight can hope to accomplish on g4 against a solid kingside.
21. Ree7 Rf1 22. Be2?! Nhf6
In my haste to return my bishop to active play, I allow Black to usefully bring his knight back into play. Perhaps h3 when Ngf6 would have kept Black's knight tucked away in the corner for longer.
23. Bf3 Rad8 24. h3 Nh6
I wish I could say that I'd put a knight out of play but f7 becomes solidly defended.
25. g4 Nh7 26. Bd5 Ng5 27. Kg2 b4?
I took a glance at this position and assumed my bishop was lost when in fact it was Black that had dropped a pawn. The only explanation I can think of is that I didn't examine the position for long enough and I had been having an irrational fear for the safety of my bishop on d5 whose only defender was the knight on c3. I must remember to carefully examine the true strength of my opponents threats in future.
The game continued and I lost due to being a piece down.
Originally posted by exigentskyI guess that can't be too bad, because chess is a 2 people game. what I mean is, let's say in the game you made a blunder. if the opponent has not seen it and the game has played on, it will make no difference for which side you analyse for. your move will be a blunder because "it lets the opponent to take advantage of it." the opponent not taking advantage of it is actually the same blunder as yours. so, when you analyse for yourself, you analyse for the opponent too, in a way.
When you guys analyze for yourselves, do you do it only from your perspective? For example, if you're White, do you only try to find better moves for White? So far, I've only done it from my perspective but I'm wondering if this is a good idea.
I know this cannot be true for all cases, but it seems very general.
Originally posted by agentrenoI thought you played a lot of decent moves and annotated the game well.
Here's one of my latest games. Anybody who can spot mistakes in my analysis, I'd be very grateful for any followup posts!
Game 4238414
I get the impression that you know a lot of general principles which you use to aid your play, but sometimes they are too dominant in your thought process. For example, "Bd5 Nxd5 would have given up my bishop pair" and "Swapping off material favours the side with more material". While these are true, maybe other factors are more relevant in the given position.
In fact, you even note yourself doing this: "At this point I believe I overestimated the familiar principle of attacking in the centre". I'd encourage you to continue this attempt to see if the general holds true in the specific case.
I agree that it appears that Black makes too many pawn moves in the opening. But unless you can find a concrete way to refute this, don't allow yourself to view it as bad just because it often is. We know that in other cases, White would quickly complete his development and lauch an attack at Black's undeveloped position (maybe using the king as a target, or maybe the advanced pawns as a target if they lack the support of the Black pieces). However - being specific to your game - how does such a plan fit in with moves like Be2-f1. i.e. Black's pawn moves, in addition to postponing Black's development, also chase away some of White's well placed pieces and that doesn't assist a White attack. Maybe after a6, White should consider a4 to help keep the bishop on the a2/g8 diagonal.
For the position prior to White's 23rd, observe some things. You've been attacking f7, but Black has 4 pieces on the kingside, compared to only White's rooks currently having an influence there. But compare the queenside: your bishop points in this direction and your knight is located there. So, I think the "principle of two weaknesses" can be applied here. i.e. you've attacked one weakness at f7 and this forced some Black pieces to defend the weakness. But now look for a second weakness to attack, since often your opponent can easily defend one but not two weaknesses. And since you're stronger on the queenside, look to create a weakness there. i.e. attack the Black pawns. After a4, the Black pawns start to feel the pressure of the White pieces, while the Black knights appear to be too far to help their defence.
>> The game continued and I lost due to being a piece down.
I think you lost because the psychological shock of the Bxf7+ mistake. Following that, you needed to take stock of the situation and play on with full effort. You may have been a piece down, but you had three pawns for it. But more specifically, you could force the exchange of Black's last pawn, so even if you lost all your pawns, he's got RN vs R and that's a draw in many cases. I guess your motivation/concentration suffered after Bxf7+.
Intersesting game.
The following was an OTB game against a 1733 I played today. I made an interesting positional exchange sacrifice and managed to make my compensation count. However, it wasn't easy and everything was very complicated.
While, I know we're not supposed to use Rybka, I already did while inputting the game. Sorry! Still, I think it's worth posting and analyzing. I'll provide annotations soon. So far, apart from the opening, the sacrifice itself (which it doesn't quite understand) and two endgame moves that were simple and effective but not fastest (I saw the others but I chose those), I think my matchup rate for this game is 100% 1st engine choice.
This isn't the first time I've had such high matchup rates. This is why I always play my move before leaving the board. I don't want to even have to deal with my opponents suspecting I'm cheating. Given that I don't wear or use any electronic device (apart from game clock) and they can see me think and play the whole time, it would be pretty silly to be accused. It's just easier this way.
Anyway, here's the game:
1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 c5 3. d5 e6 4. Nc3 exd5 5. cxd5 d6 6. e4 g6 7. Nf3 Bg7 8. h3
O-O 9. Bd3 a6 10. a4 Re8 11. O-O Nbd7 12. Bf4 Nh5 13. Bxd6 Qb6 14. Bh2 Qxb2 15.
Ne2 Qxa1 16. Qxa1 Bxa1 17. Rxa1 f6 18. Nc3 Ne5 19. Nxe5 fxe5 20. d6 Nf6 21. Rb1
Ra7 22. a5 Bd7 23. f4 exf4 24. Bxf4 Bc6 25. e5 Nh5 26. Bh2 Ng7 27. Bc4+ Ne6 28.
Rd1 Kf7 29. d7 Bxd7 30. Rxd7+ Kf8 31. Rxh7 Raa8 32. Bxe6 Rad8 33. Bf7 Re7 34.
Rh8+ Kxf7 35. Rxd8 1-0
I welcome any comments and I will add annotations eventually.
Originally posted by exigentskyA good benoni, you stayed in my DB (personal accumulation) through 11. Nbd7 when black finally leaves the DB...but even this isn't uncharacteristic. Great game, strong theory.
Unless, someone shows some special interest, I think I'll just do an in-depth analysis on another game sometime.
29. d7! extremely well played.
33. Bf7 very well calculated.
Your opening was very strong, and was very well played during his queenside exchange. OTB that can become a psychological problem when things break down like that.
Well played.