Although even well into the middlegame my opponent either had a small advantage or at least equality, despite his weaknesses, I felt comfortable playing the position and was able to identify good ideas for making progress. I also correctly identified many of the important positional ideas (including strong and weak squares) and found dynamic moves like the (temporary) pawn sacrifice idea on move 19. The turning point of the game was the sequence that began on move 23, which involved my finding some unexpected intermediate moves and placed my opponent under significant pressure for the first time; this led him to err with 26...Rf7?! Although not a losing move in itself, I was subsequently able to maintain the initiative for the rest of the game and win an interesting, dynamic minor piece endgame. Even considering some weaker play in the opening and early middlegame, I feel this game serves to highlight some of the signposts of progress that I have been making in strengthening my game.
23 April 2017
Annotated Game #172: Light and Dark
This next tournament game is probably the best one of mine that illustrates the idea of weak-square complexes and how one can exploit them, which for Class players is a sometimes mysterious concept. Here we have a clear light vs. dark situation on the board, with my opponent's pawns placed on dark squares, which have the effect of restricting his dark-square bishop, but more importantly leaving open the light squares to be dominated by my pieces. This situation was evident by move 17 and demonstrated by the effectiveness of my centralized knight (these weaknesses aren't just for bishops to exploit).
Although even well into the middlegame my opponent either had a small advantage or at least equality, despite his weaknesses, I felt comfortable playing the position and was able to identify good ideas for making progress. I also correctly identified many of the important positional ideas (including strong and weak squares) and found dynamic moves like the (temporary) pawn sacrifice idea on move 19. The turning point of the game was the sequence that began on move 23, which involved my finding some unexpected intermediate moves and placed my opponent under significant pressure for the first time; this led him to err with 26...Rf7?! Although not a losing move in itself, I was subsequently able to maintain the initiative for the rest of the game and win an interesting, dynamic minor piece endgame. Even considering some weaker play in the opening and early middlegame, I feel this game serves to highlight some of the signposts of progress that I have been making in strengthening my game.
Although even well into the middlegame my opponent either had a small advantage or at least equality, despite his weaknesses, I felt comfortable playing the position and was able to identify good ideas for making progress. I also correctly identified many of the important positional ideas (including strong and weak squares) and found dynamic moves like the (temporary) pawn sacrifice idea on move 19. The turning point of the game was the sequence that began on move 23, which involved my finding some unexpected intermediate moves and placed my opponent under significant pressure for the first time; this led him to err with 26...Rf7?! Although not a losing move in itself, I was subsequently able to maintain the initiative for the rest of the game and win an interesting, dynamic minor piece endgame. Even considering some weaker play in the opening and early middlegame, I feel this game serves to highlight some of the signposts of progress that I have been making in strengthening my game.
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