English Chess Forum

The latest articles from The Bristol Chess Times:

How can British chess clubs benefit from the 2018 world championship?
https://bristolchesstimes.com/2018/03/2 ... mpionship/

Patience when attacking a d4 opening system
https://bristolchesstimes.com/2018/04/0 ... ng-system/

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Enjoy!

...0-0-0 isn't a non-committal developing move. Castling long is the biggest commitment you can possibly make in the opening. Non-committal development would have put the bishop on d6 and left the king in the centre until White could be bothered coming after it.

Yes true, perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. My intent was to describe a feeling of planless development. Something else entirely

Jon Fisher wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 03, 2018 6:59 am

My intent was to describe a feeling of planless development.

In another article didn't you describe a plan of meeting the London system and perhaps other non-threatening stuff with .. d5, .. Nc6, .. Bf5/g4, .. Qd7 and .. 0-0-0 etc ?

Your resulting structure looked as if you had been following that idea against a Colle-Zukertort approach.

Yes I did and that was exactly the way I played. However in this gam I felt uncomfortable with my opponents early Qa4, Bb5 combo and I didn’t have a target on f4 to hit with f6 and g5.

I guess I just felt like the opening phase wasn’t great for me but then the evaluation would say otherwise.

Jon Fisher wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 03, 2018 6:59 am

Yes true, perhaps a poor choice of words on my part. My intent was to describe a feeling of planless development. Something else entirely

Sorry, I didn't mean to quibble about the definitions of words, I'm sure you know the difference between non-committal and planless. I think you probably played the move because your brain had categorised it as a non-committal move by mistake.

I'm reminded of the first example from Soltis's The Art of Defence in Chess.
rnbqk1nr/5pb1/p1p1p1pp/1p1pP3/3P1B2/2N2N1P/PPPQBPP1/2KR3R
Spoiler: Black checkmates White in less than 20 moves from the diagram.

"Now, does this seem fair to White who ostensibly hasn't made a single mistake while Black has been losing time and retreating his pieces behind weaknesses? But White has made a mistake, a bad one: 10. 0-0-0??. If he had castled kingside and begun to exploit the queenside with a4, the shoe would be on the other foot."

No problem and nice example! I love Soltis writing.

I decided to “commit” tonight with 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. e3 Bg4 4. Nd2 Qd7 5. c3 e5?!

Grovelled for a draw in the end.

Jon Fisher wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 03, 2018 11:24 pm

I decided to “commit” tonight with 1. d4 d5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. e3 Bg4 4. Nd2 Qd7 5. c3 e5?

Were you ready for 3.c4?

No just lazy analysis on my part. Because the game started in a similar fashion to the one in the original article I remembered that e5 had been an interesting idea. Just played without thinking.

Should have looked at the board! Just gave opponent pawn for free on move 5!

Jon Fisher wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:29 am

Should have looked at the board! Just gave opponent pawn for free on move 5!

Not totally for free. It's the equivalent idea as with colours reversed 1.d4 Nf6 2. Nc3 d5 3. Bg5 Nbd7 4. e4 dxe4 5. f3

So you could follow up with .. f6. Another idea is to play Ng8-e7-g6 and challenge White to hold the pawn.