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Another upset win
By Steve | September 12, 2007
Before this month, my USCF tournament record against players in the 1700s was 9 losses and 2 draws. So I’m excited to start the club September tourney off with two wins in a row against players in the upper 1700s.
The comments and variations below are not intended to be a detailed analysis. Instead, I have tried to record roughly what I was actually thinking as the game progressed.
While I was entering the moves into ChessBase, it occurred to me that I made several tempo-wasting moves in the opening and early middle-game, and I think this was the root cause of my difficulty along the e-file. I came close to losing the game there.
The endgame is a possibly instructive example of knight vs. bishop imbalance, and how a bishop isn’t always better even when there are pawns on both sides of the board.
In John Nunn’s Secrets of Practical Chess, he talks about dogged defense, and how sometimes players fail to recognize when a position calls for you to patiently do nothing. Well, that’s how I felt about the endgame position between about moves 35 and 45. I had no winning chances, so I made my position as solid as I could, preventing White’s king from penetrating. Then I basically shuffled back and forth, waiting for White to do something.
The situation changed significantly when White gave me the e4 square for my knight and began to shift his king toward the queenside, which allowed me the chance to penetrate on the kingside. In this phase of the game my knight was able to dominate White’s bishop, and I was able to gain a passed pawn and then the game.
3 Responses to “Another upset win”
Comments
I'm a club player on the border between Class C and B. I play regularly at the
September 15th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
28…Re8 would have been fine, because his king is only optically better - he has no targets and he’s not going anywhere - the lines would be much like those in the game.
The really disastrous idea for white wasn’t 47. f4, which would be fine if followed by 48. f5 (the shuffle continues). 48. Kd3? is evidence of a desire to win that bears no relation to the position at hand. There’s no possible breakthrough on the kingside, against almost any reasonable line you could take. Then 49. Bh4?? displays a complete lack of understanding of the position - h4 is the worst square on the board for the bishop, and practically begs you to carry out your winning plan. If he wants to break through, he has to at least try moving the kingside pawns. If he realizes there is no breakthrough, he may as well come back with 49. Ke3 (you still have a pull, but he can probably draw).
At the same time, you played well to not create any additional weaknesses and make your problematic pawn structure unassailable. However, you might have obtained winning chances much sooner if you played Nxc3 in the early going instead of allowing Nxd5 and the boring symmetrical pawn structure. It looks like the most boring exchange french in history. The total lack of available active plans flows naturally to allowing the weakened pawn structure/N vs. B ending.
September 16th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Chris—Thanks for taking the time to look at the game and comment. I had the same impression about 48. Kd3. I thought about playing Nxc3. I’m not really sure why I didn’t, except that I’ve unfortunately come to mistrust my instincts about exchanging pieces.
November 18th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Nice game. I hope you will remember the lesson from this game when you become a GM and you are playing with a lower rated player: Don’t push for win when the position doesn’t justify it! You played really well, especially when you consider how (relatively) fast you have been playing recently!