After my first-round victory against an Expert (Annotated Game #216), I had a short draw against an equally-rated player. My rule these days is not to take draws unless the position is in fact drawn with no real play left. Although it was still technically the middlegame, I would say it met the criteria and the engine assessment corroborates that, so I don't feel bad about the result. It also let me conserve energy for this next game, which was again against someone 300+ rating points higher.
The story of the opening into the early middlegame is unfortunately a familiar one. In an English vs. Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD) structure, I do fine for the first 10 moves of "book" and then flounder in an unfamiliar position. One of the insights I've had is that this is in fact a completely normal phenomenon. The point being, learn the ideas of the position through game analysis afterwards, so the next time it will be familiar. I believe this is one of the most powerful ways of improving your game on a practical level. It also means that frequent tournament/serious chess and post-game analysis is necessary.
Unlike in a number of previous games, I manage to recover after the rather silly 10. Na4?! and break the trend giving Black the initiative. It's interesting to see how early trends in a game often take psychological hold and a small but real advantage for one side just keeps getting (unnecessarily) larger. Here, Black has pressure in a complex position through move 13, then allows me in the next several moves to simplify and improve the relative position of my pieces. By move 17 I feel much better about the position and by move 22 things are completely level.
However, that doesn't mean that there were no more opportunities to go wrong. My opponent kept trying to create chances for me to degrade my position, for example on moves 37 and 41. The latter one is instructive, as one typical Class player error is to always take an even material exchange, in the belief that it will lead to a quicker draw. That's not what the position demanded, though, and the draw was sealed soon afterwards.
One GM comment I recall reading a while back noted that against lower-rated players, masters can often get significantly behind coming out of the opening, but then draw or win in the end after their opponents make a key error, typically close to or in the endgame. This seemed to be my opponent's thinking as well, which I can't fault him for. One of the differences in this game is that after recovering in the middlegame, I did not let up in my focus and calculation, assuming that it would be drawn; games don't magically end themselves (or if they do, it's likely because of a blunder on your part). So although my level of play in the first part was sub-par, it was good to see that I had what it took to go the full distance in the game.
The story of the opening into the early middlegame is unfortunately a familiar one. In an English vs. Queen's Gambit Declined (QGD) structure, I do fine for the first 10 moves of "book" and then flounder in an unfamiliar position. One of the insights I've had is that this is in fact a completely normal phenomenon. The point being, learn the ideas of the position through game analysis afterwards, so the next time it will be familiar. I believe this is one of the most powerful ways of improving your game on a practical level. It also means that frequent tournament/serious chess and post-game analysis is necessary.
Unlike in a number of previous games, I manage to recover after the rather silly 10. Na4?! and break the trend giving Black the initiative. It's interesting to see how early trends in a game often take psychological hold and a small but real advantage for one side just keeps getting (unnecessarily) larger. Here, Black has pressure in a complex position through move 13, then allows me in the next several moves to simplify and improve the relative position of my pieces. By move 17 I feel much better about the position and by move 22 things are completely level.
However, that doesn't mean that there were no more opportunities to go wrong. My opponent kept trying to create chances for me to degrade my position, for example on moves 37 and 41. The latter one is instructive, as one typical Class player error is to always take an even material exchange, in the belief that it will lead to a quicker draw. That's not what the position demanded, though, and the draw was sealed soon afterwards.
One GM comment I recall reading a while back noted that against lower-rated players, masters can often get significantly behind coming out of the opening, but then draw or win in the end after their opponents make a key error, typically close to or in the endgame. This seemed to be my opponent's thinking as well, which I can't fault him for. One of the differences in this game is that after recovering in the middlegame, I did not let up in my focus and calculation, assuming that it would be drawn; games don't magically end themselves (or if they do, it's likely because of a blunder on your part). So although my level of play in the first part was sub-par, it was good to see that I had what it took to go the full distance in the game.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Your comments and ideas on chess training and this site are welcomed.
Please note that moderation is turned on as an anti-spam measure; your comment will be published as soon as possible, if it is not spam.