CuriousChimpanzee (1615) vs SenseiDanya (1651)

1620Episode 12 · 0-1

During the gameIn the review

  1. King's Indian Defense: Normal Variation, 5.Bf4 d6 6.e3 c5
  2. 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.Nf3 O-O
  3. 5. Bf4 The London treatment of the King's Indian Opening The London treatment of the King's Indian, and he grants it straight away that the line is perfectly respectable.
  4. 5...d6 6.e3
  5. 6... c5 Which break, when his bishop is outside the chain Opening The King's Indian gives Black two pawn breaks, and the bishop coming to f4 chooses between them for him: e5 becomes much harder to achieve, which is the whole point of the move. But a bishop outside its own pawn chain makes the other break better, and that is this one. The cost is named as it is paid - some of what makes the position a King's Indian at all goes with it. What is left is closer to a Benoni, which is why he would rather have had e5. The review shows why he could not: the break drops a pawn on the spot, and preparing it properly is not simple either. Play ...Re8 first and it still fails, to a trope of the opening - the rook ends up holding two things at once, the queen comes off, the rook is chased away and d5 falls.
  6. 7.Be2
  7. 7... Nc6 The capture that hands back the centre Opening The capture on d4 is available and asks to be examined rather than made. It is not needed: the knight can simply come out. Taking would hand back the share of the centre the pawn is holding.
  8. 8.O-O Bg4 9.h3
  9. 9... Bxf3 Trade the bishop to unprotect the pawn Piece play The retreat to h5 is not on - g4 wins the bishop - so the choice is whether to take. Taking looks like a mistake by every general rule: the bishop moves twice and White's remaining bishops get better. It is played for one concrete thing, which is that the knight was what held d4 together. The review's own summary of it: the bishop came to g4 to soften that pawn up.
  10. 10.Bxf3
  11. 10... Qb6 Threaten the pawn to provoke the push Strategy The weakened pawn wants pressing, and the move that presses it also brings a piece out. Not e5, which would give up d5 for nothing. And the threat is not really the point - what he wants is for White to push past. Reviewed with a shrug: probably not the best move in the position, but a thoroughly thematic one. If the knight jumps to a4 instead, the queen steps to a5 and it is the knight that is left awkward, which is worth more than the attack on the pawn.
  12. 11. d5 A chain is a thing with a base Pawn structure He gets the push, and the first thing it does is open the long diagonal for a bishop nothing can contest. The second is that a pawn chain now exists, and a chain is a thing with a base to be attacked.
  13. 11... Na5 On the rim on purpose Piece play The base is c4. From e5 the knight invites a capture that spoils the structure; from a5 it does the same job with none of that. It is also on the edge, where knights are supposed to be bad - and he uses it to say that a player past 1600 has to be able to break a general rule rather than be paralysed by it. The review makes the point properly: the knight on a5 never threatens to take anything. It is there for the plan, and the plan is ...a6 and ...b5. Often the pawn is simply given, as in the Benko, to open the file. Then he finds one of his own games at under-13 in the same structure, where the sacrifice went in and every piece flowed to the queenside - and the c-pawn decided that game too.
  14. 12.b3
  15. 12... Nd7 Retreat to unblock the bishop Piece play Back the way it came, to unblock the bishop and hit the knight at the same time.
  16. 13.Rc1 Qb4
  17. 14. Qd2 Where White should have made the break harder Opening Asked in the review where White went wrong, he cannot find a single move and answers with a plan instead: make ...a6 and ...b5 harder. Qc2 and Rc1, rather than this. The queen on d2 is what makes his knight awkward to move later, and the bishop dropping back to e2 would have discouraged the break outright.
  18. 14... a6 Prepare the break rather than play it Strategy The second idea behind the queen's move, and the real one. The break cannot be played yet - it would just lose the pawn - so it gets prepared, and once it lands the whole queenside opens up.
  19. 15.Rfd1 b5 16.cxb5
  20. 16... axb5 Say what the trade just changed General The trade goes through. Then the habit: say what has changed. The chain is gone, so the pawn that led it is loose, and the a-file is open onto a pawn that has a rook staring at it. The knight is in the way of that and still does not move, because moving it invites the queen trade and the c-file.
  21. 17.Ne4
  22. 17... Qa3 A piece may stand badly for a while Piece play Two good moves - trade queens, or keep them on and prepare the knight's return. He takes the second. The knight will be passive on b7 and he says so before playing for it: a piece is allowed to stand badly for a while if you know what will improve it.
  23. 18.Be2
  24. 18... Rfb8 An attack away from the king needs a named target Attack Defend it, but with a move that also does what the position wants - and what the position wants is more pieces on that side. Which is where he stops to say that an attack away from the king works exactly like an attack on it, with one extra job: the king is a target by definition, and anywhere else you have to name the target yourself. Here it was named moves ago.
  25. 19.Nc3
  26. 19... c4 The move that threatens something, and traps your queen Strategy The queen has to watch out for being shut in, and the move that avoids it also unsticks the passive knight and adds to the pressure. It goes after the pawn holding the chain together. The review is about the move nobody suggested: ...b4 attacks the knight, and Nb5 all but traps the queen - one square left, and it can be evicted from there too. So the lesson is aimed at the reflex: a move that threatens a piece is exactly the kind that gets played without checking.
  27. 20.bxc4
  28. 20... Nxc4 The capture that also solves a problem Tactics Either capture works, and the knight's is chosen because it opens the a-file in the same move, which is the other thing that needed doing.
  29. 21.Bxc4
  30. 21... bxc4 None of this touches his king Attack Both files are open now and the rook has somewhere to go. And he says it outright: nothing that has been done here has anything to do with White's king.
  31. 22.Rc2
  32. 22... Nc5 Improve the idle piece before cashing in Strategy The pressure is not to be cashed in yet. Taking on c3 is what suggests itself and gives up the piece the whole attack runs on. Instead, find the piece doing nothing - the knight has been idle since it retreated - and give it the square it wants. With everything finally pointing the same way, he says the position is about to need a tactic rather than another improving move.
  33. 23.Rb1
  34. 23... Nd3 An offered trade needs no answer General The rook is offered a trade and simply carries on. Answering an offer feels obligatory and mostly is not - let him do the taking, and the file is Black's.
  35. 24.Rxb8+ Rxb8 25.Ne2
  36. 25... Qa4 Defend with the piece that keeps working Piece play The pawn needs defending, and he wants the defender to keep working. The queen does: it guards the pawn, leans on the rook, and threatens the check that costs White f2. The move the chat wanted was the knight to b2, and the review is about why not: on b2 defending is the only thing it does. The queen defends too, but that is not all it does - which is the difference. And the pawn it defends is not the prize. Going after it wins a pawn and loses the thread: the bishop goes, the king loosens, White gets play, and Black's pieces end up in a corner of the board doing nothing. He calls it tunnel vision at a higher level.
  37. 26.Nc1 Rb1 27.Kh2
  38. 27... Nxf4 Give the knight to get the pawn moving Strategy The pawn wants to advance and cannot - it would leave the knight hanging - so the question becomes what to do about the knight first. The answer is to give it away, which looks absurd for a piece that good: eggs get broken to make an omelette, and what the omelette buys is the pawn push. In the review it is simply the decisive move.
  39. 28.exf4 c3 29.Qe2
  40. 29... Rxc1 Find the order before taking Tactics A pawn is there to be taken and taking it immediately is the reflex. When a capture is that obvious, the thing to look for is the best order to do it in. Taking the other way sets up a fork, ends a piece up, and leaves a pawn that is going to run. Asked afterwards why he waited: checking first and taking f2 next allows a capture on c4 and White is back in it. It is also the only answer to White's own idea - the bishop coming to h6 threatens mate on f8, and this check pulls the rook off the square that mate needs before the bishop can be taken.
  41. 30.Rxc1 Qxf4+ 31.Kg1 Qxc1+
  42. White resigned
End of episode 12 · 0-1 ← 11. vs Tubertz (1608)All games at 162013. vs aquilaungula (1452) →