DMD9584 (1535) vs SenseiDanya (1590)

1590Episode 10 · 0-1

During the gameIn the review

  1. Caro-Kann Defense: 2.Nf3 d5 3.exd5 cxd5
  2. 1.e4
  3. 1... c6 The Caro-Kann, and what it costs Opening A Caro-Kann because the chat asked for one, and he takes requests. The idea is not hard: this prepares ...d5. Playing ...d5 at once is the Scandinavian; the Caro-Kann is the French's cousin in logic and nothing like it in spirit. The name is two people - Horatio Caro and Marcus Kann, masters rather than grandmasters, playing in the second half of the nineteenth century - and neither of them played it first. John Withers did, in a casual game in Bristol in 1845, forty years before Kann lost his own first game with it. Why nobody played it in the 1700s: not contesting the centre was unacceptable then, and only later did it become clear that the quality of central control matters more than the quantity - and that ...d5 makes a stronghold. Its drawbacks, given honestly: c6 is taken away from the knight, which often ends up passive on d7; and against the Advance the bishop does get out to f5 - the improvement over the French - but the tempi spent preparing it, and the ...c5 still needed to hit the chain, hand White space, an initiative and the d6 hole. The verdict: a peaceful opening that wins few quick games, and the one he recommends at 1500-1600 to anyone wanting to get better at positional chess. The learning curve is steep, and you will lose games to it first.
  4. 2. Nf3 Giving the centre away with 2.Nf3 Opening Not the dangerous version. The knight comes out, White gives up the centre, and it is Black who ends up with a pawn in it. The knight can also be pinned by ...Bg4, which is a nuisance in this opening. What the review recommends for White is development first - the Two Knights, without d4 - which has become popular lately. Even so it is unambitious: Black gets d5, more of the centre and quick development, and the position is about equal.
  5. 2...d5 3.exd5 cxd5
  6. 4. Bb5+ What White should have played instead Opening d4 was the move, and even the Exchange Caro-Kann it leads to is not the most dangerous way of playing against this. The review keeps going with White's setup: Nc3 there is a positional inaccuracy - not a blunder, but the c-pawn wants that square, either for c3 and a chain or for c4 to hit d5. And the bishop comes out before the knight, to f4, where it stops ...Bd6; develop the knight first and the bishop is hard to place and Black gets a fine square. Played that way White is not worse and Black is merely comfortable, which is more than this line gets him.
  7. 4... Bd7 Develop by inviting the trade Opening ...Nc6 is fine too, but this develops a piece and asks him to take, which develops the knight for free.
  8. 5.Bxd7+ Nxd7 6.d4
  9. 6... Ngf6 Openings have cognates Opening The principle that carries across openings: there is no special Caro-Kann way to develop - ...Nf6, ...e6, ...Bd6, as usual. Openings are not separate civilisations with their own languages. They are languages with cognates, sharing concepts.
  10. 7.Nc3 e6 8.Be3
  11. 8... Bd6 Do not trade a bishop for a pawn blemish Piece play The bishop has several squares and this is the one that centralises it. ...Bb4 is the popular choice and he is not tempted: let the king castle out of the pin and taking on c3 means parting with a bishop to leave a pawn structure slightly worse, which is not a trade worth making. Nb5 is the move to ask about, and it goes nowhere: ...Bb8, then ...a6 chases the knight back, and nobody has gained anything from the transaction.
  12. 9.O-O O-O 10.Qd2 Rc8
  13. 11. Ne2 What does this move release? General A reasonable move - the knight is heading somewhere safer. And it is the moment for the question the early middlegame always wants: what is this move's drawback, and what square does it release?
  14. 11... Ne4 The Pillsbury knight Piece play This one. And the knight that lands there has a name: a Pillsbury knight is a knight on e4 or e5 with its own pawns on d and f standing behind it. Harry Nelson Pillsbury, an American player either side of 1900.
  15. 12.Qd3
  16. 12... f5 King safety is relative: who is in the room? Pawn structure The pawn is not needed to hold the knight - the d-pawn does that - but it adds two things: the pawn itself can go on to f4, and the rook can lift to h6. The objection is that it weakens the king, and the answer is that weakness is relative. You can walk around your own flat with no clothes on; at your parents' you cannot. It depends who is in the room. Here the room is full of Black's pieces and White has almost nothing on that side, so it is affordable.
  17. 13. Nf4 Trade off the piece the attack runs on Strategy The review calls this the second mistake, the one that puts White on the brink: it invites the queen out, and then ...g5 arrives with tempo - a move Black wanted to play anyway. The move instead is Bf4, and the reasoning is elimination: Black's dark-squared bishop is the engine of the whole attack, because it is what presses on f2. Trading it changes the position twice over: e5 is better controlled, White gets an outpost there and can chase the knight off with f3, with Nd3 and c3 to follow. Against that Black would have had to play in a restrained way himself - not the computer's ...g5 but the human ...Bf8 and ...Bf6, where the bishop cannot be got at.
  18. 13... Qf6 Defend with the piece that also attacks Piece play The pawn on e6 is attacked, and the move that answers it should do something else as well. A rook lift or a queen lift, and the queen is the better of the two: a safer defender, and she eyes h6, from where she would x-ray h2. The rook on f6 would also stand on the queen's own diagonal, inviting Bg5 later.
  19. 14.Qe2
  20. 14... g5 Chase it rather than trade your best piece Piece play The knight has to go, and not by taking it. That bishop is worth its weight in gold, and Bxf4 hands over e5. ...g5 does the job instead: it chases the knight, opens the bishop, and leaves a pawn on g5 as an umbrella for the queen when she arrives on h6. It was coming whatever he played.
  21. 15. Nxe6 Panic, and a standoff named early Tactics Panic, and exactly what the queen on f6 was there for. This gives up a knight, and the follow-up gives up a second one, because the queens are in a standoff. The habit worth taking from it is his own: he names the standoff the moment he sees it, and naming it is what makes it controllable. White's position was unpleasant in any case - Nd3 keeps the game going, taking on e6 does not.
  22. 15...Qxe6 16.Nxg5 Nxg5 17.Bxg5 Qxe2
  23. White resigned
End of episode 10 · 0-1 ← 09. vs Vilhaze (1640)All games at 159011. vs Tubertz (1608) →