This second-round tournament game features an Anglo-Dutch, a fancy way of saying that Black responds to my English Opening with a standard Dutch Defense setup. This is not necessarily a bad way to play for Black, but most Dutch players have a significantly more difficult time in coming up with a plan that doesn't involve use of the e4 square, which in this line is taken away by White after 7. d3. So it's not the Dutch they are normally looking for. I have much better results than average in this line and am happy to see it on the board.
My opponent actually does a decent job of pursuing his own goals on the kingside even without the e4 square, including the aggressive plan with 14...f4, which is good enough for equality. For my side, the main lesson out of the opening is to continue pressing on the queenside whenever possible, for example with 11.a4, rather than get distracted. The resulting middlegame evolution is interesting. I manage to draw Black's fangs on the kingside, even if I also end up liquidating my queenside space advantage. The result is a much more open game, which Black tries to take advantage of by snatching a central pawn with his queen. However, I get his c-pawn in return, along with a monster centralized bishop and the initiative.
My opponent, under pressure, neglects to see the net closing in around his queen and misses a backwards bishop move that traps it. (See also Annotated Game #218 and Annotated Game #221 for examples of this phenomenon.) So in this particular 9-game stretch, I won 3 games using this kind of tactic. I think the moral of the story is that it's more difficult in general to visualize backwards moves by pieces. That said, I was very much alive to the possibility and consciously played move 25 with the idea of taking away the Black queen's remaining squares.
My opponent actually does a decent job of pursuing his own goals on the kingside even without the e4 square, including the aggressive plan with 14...f4, which is good enough for equality. For my side, the main lesson out of the opening is to continue pressing on the queenside whenever possible, for example with 11.a4, rather than get distracted. The resulting middlegame evolution is interesting. I manage to draw Black's fangs on the kingside, even if I also end up liquidating my queenside space advantage. The result is a much more open game, which Black tries to take advantage of by snatching a central pawn with his queen. However, I get his c-pawn in return, along with a monster centralized bishop and the initiative.
My opponent, under pressure, neglects to see the net closing in around his queen and misses a backwards bishop move that traps it. (See also Annotated Game #218 and Annotated Game #221 for examples of this phenomenon.) So in this particular 9-game stretch, I won 3 games using this kind of tactic. I think the moral of the story is that it's more difficult in general to visualize backwards moves by pieces. That said, I was very much alive to the possibility and consciously played move 25 with the idea of taking away the Black queen's remaining squares.
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