This first-round win highlights a concept mentioned before on this blog as one of the keys to gaining playing strength (and rating points) - identifying, studying and exploiting common errors made by opponents in the opening systems you play. This means not just memorizing trappy lines, but understanding the fundamental characteristics of the positions into the early middlegame.
In this game, which features the 3...c5 variation of the Advance Caro-Kann, that key element is the struggle for the d4 square, which is occupied by a White pawn. If White is not careful, Black can pile on the pressure and end up a pawn. Through experience, I've seen how this situation can sneak up on White if they just ignore the potential problem. So essentially I've won this game before, by picking up the d-pawn while not allowing White any counterplay. This gives Black a comfortable strategic edge, if not quite an outright victory.
Here, White went down this oblivious path, missing a last chance on move 12 to avoid problems, although the necessary sequence (found by Komodo) is long, complicated, and unlikely to be calculated over-the-board. Of course obtaining an advantage doesn't mean that your opponent goes away, or that you can put your own play on autopilot. The final outcome required careful play from move 14 on, but at least was relatively simple.
It's worth highlighting that finding the most rapid way to a win is irrelevant to the outcome. It's better to keep the advantage in hand, snuff out any counterplay from your opponent in advance, and win easily, rather than try to always play "best" moves and win quickly. This is even the case when you are low on the clock, since calculating "best" moves accurately can actually take longer - especially if the variations are more complex and you need to be absolutely sure of them, rather than simply blunder-checking the "good enough" ones.
In this game, which features the 3...c5 variation of the Advance Caro-Kann, that key element is the struggle for the d4 square, which is occupied by a White pawn. If White is not careful, Black can pile on the pressure and end up a pawn. Through experience, I've seen how this situation can sneak up on White if they just ignore the potential problem. So essentially I've won this game before, by picking up the d-pawn while not allowing White any counterplay. This gives Black a comfortable strategic edge, if not quite an outright victory.
Here, White went down this oblivious path, missing a last chance on move 12 to avoid problems, although the necessary sequence (found by Komodo) is long, complicated, and unlikely to be calculated over-the-board. Of course obtaining an advantage doesn't mean that your opponent goes away, or that you can put your own play on autopilot. The final outcome required careful play from move 14 on, but at least was relatively simple.
It's worth highlighting that finding the most rapid way to a win is irrelevant to the outcome. It's better to keep the advantage in hand, snuff out any counterplay from your opponent in advance, and win easily, rather than try to always play "best" moves and win quickly. This is even the case when you are low on the clock, since calculating "best" moves accurately can actually take longer - especially if the variations are more complex and you need to be absolutely sure of them, rather than simply blunder-checking the "good enough" ones.
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