Aside from that single stupid blunder (you'd have thought that I'd have learned from Carlsen that capturing the e pawn with your queen in the middlegame is a bad idea...) my play wasn't too bad. However there were certainly a lot of missed opportunities and I generally avoided even favourable complications in favour of a very solid position. See game viewer for moves and annotation.
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It was only in analysis that I saw how much I had missed on the queenside. Although I 'kept track' of everything most of the time, all of my moves this game were pretty pedestrian. How long before I start taking advantage of interesting tactical opportunities in my blindfold games? Perhaps that is what took ICC 'Jedi Master' a year to get to (see earlier post). Blindfold may be teaching me visualisation which will help a lot with calculation, but I haven't managed to play out any interesting calculations during my blindfold games yet... just remembering where everything is and then playing prosaically seems the best I can manage right now.
c4 was a big positional error. It gains space on the queenside but since you release the pressure you had on d4 white gets good play in the center and kingside, which will be better than your queenside play.
ReplyDeleteBetter was Nd7 with idea to take on e5. If he plays Nf3 then you play e5 and have strong play in the center so you have equalized. Your idea of Bxe5 and then Nd7 is not nearly as good because your dark squared bishop is extremely important in these types of positions. After Bxe5 your dark squares are weak.
-cheVelle on ICC
Good analysis. I definately agree that playing 8...c4 could have made things go quite badly for me - I didn't pay enough attention to my opponents play in the centre.
ReplyDeleteI'm not entirely convinced that I would have a significant dark square weakness if 8...Bxe5 9.dxe5 ...Nd7 however - the pawn on e5 would be very weak, and I could even leave it if I chose, where it would block his dark square bishop.
You're right that the e5 pawn would be weak in that line and it's certainly good for black, but the problem with your idea is that he would not play 9. dxe5 because after your line 8...Bxe5 9. dxe5 Nd7 wins a pawn. After 8...Bxe5 the line would go 9. Bxe5 Nxe5 10. fxe5 Nd7 11. f4. Now compare his bishop to yours. His e5 is not weak as in your line, and his bishop is far better than yours. Just good bishop vs bad bishop. White is much better as he has good play. He can go 0-0, Nd2-f3, Qh4, Ng4, etc. You can try to trade off your bishops by going b6, a5, and Ba6 but he will just play Bc2 after all that.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the position in my line after 11.f4 it's obvious to see that giving up your dark squared bishop is a mistake.
-cheVelle