Where did I go wrong?

Technical questions regarding Openings, Middlegames, Endings etc.
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soheil_hooshdaran
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Where did I go wrong?

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:01 am

Hi
What was my mistake, appart from ...Nxe4?
[Event "Winter TNM"]
[Site "San Francisco"]
[Date "26.1.2016"]
[Round "4"]
[White "Askin, Michael C"]
[Black "Houshdaran, S"]
[Result "1-0"]
[BlackElo "1736"]
[ECO "E91"]
[Opening "King's Indian"]
[Variation "6.Be2 c5 7.O-O"]
[WhiteElo "1958"]
[TimeControl "300"]
[Termination "normal"]
[PlyCount "57"]
[WhiteType "human"]
[BlackType "human"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 g6 3. c4 Bg7 4. Nc3 O-O 5. e4 d6 6. Be2 c5 7. O-O cxd4 8.
Nxd4 Nc6 9. Nxc6 bxc6 10. Be3 Be6 11. f4 Qa5 12. Qc2 Qb4 13. a3 Qb7 14. f5
Bd7 15. c5 Rfb8 16. b4 a5 17. Rab1 axb4 18. Rxb4 Qc8 19. Na4 Qe8 20. g4
Rxb4 21. axb4 Nxe4 22. Nb6 d5 23. Nxa8 Qxa8 24. Bd3 Qa3 25. Kh1 Be5 26. Bh6
Qxb4 27. Bxe4 Qxe4+ 28. Qxe4 dxe4 29. Rd1 1-0
His castled position looked shaky, an I should've been able to do something

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:08 am



Without checking with an engine, the exchange sacrifice after 21. .. Nxe4. Some idea that keeps your a8 Rook. Certainly there are holes round the White king, but the wave of pawns is usually enough to keep White in the game.

soheil_hooshdaran
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Joined: Tue Nov 05, 2013 5:24 pm

Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Fri Jan 29, 2016 2:50 am

Hence the need to break the wave......

Matt Fletcher
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Matt Fletcher » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:49 pm

Again not checking with an engine or spending a long time analysing, but the manoeuvre 11...Qa5 12...Qb4 13...Qb7 doesn't make a particularly strong impression. Maybe you can play something like 11...Rb8 or 11...Qc7 instead?

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:15 pm

Matt Fletcher wrote:Maybe you can play something like 11...Rb8 or 11...Qc7 instead?
Qc7 has been played in that position, but there's a problem in playing Rb8, that the a7 pawn would hang. Hence the Knight move of the Queen d8-a5-b4-b7 so as to cover a7 and free the Rook.

Black is marginally short of moves at move 11. There aren't any sensible pawn moves, minor piece moves or rook moves, so that just leaves the Queen.

Were it one of my games I would check with a database or engine the position just after the opening. I would then check the position when it had gone wrong or appeared so, just to make sure there wasn't a hidden resource. You then work between those positions to identify the exact move or moves where "equal chances" or "equality" no longer applied.

Matt Fletcher
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Matt Fletcher » Fri Jan 29, 2016 1:37 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote: ... there's a problem in playing Rb8, that the a7 pawn would hang.
Sure - but doesn't b2 hang as well?
Roger de Coverly wrote: Black is marginally short of moves at move 11. There aren't any sensible pawn moves, minor piece moves or rook moves, so that just leaves the Queen.
Yes, I was struggling to find many sensible moves but the overall plan with the queen just seemed to lose time. I've just fed the position to a computer which is happy with 11...Qa5 but thinks 12...Qb4 is ?! at best (moves such as 12...Ng4, ...Bd7, ...Rfb8, ...Bg4 being preferred).

It actually doesn't mind 11...Rb8 too much but does give White a small edge after 12.f5 Bd7 13.Qc2 Qa5 which looks similar to something you could get by following the lines above but with somewhat less flexibility for Black's in terms of rook position.

soheil_hooshdaran
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Sat Jan 30, 2016 4:28 pm

How I managed to ruin a winning position!

Where was my mistake?
Last edited by soheil_hooshdaran on Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Roger de Coverly » Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:36 pm

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:How I managed to ruin a winning position!
When did you think it was winning? I didn't really see the ending as better for White because of Black's play with the King side pawns.

soheil_hooshdaran
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Sat Jan 30, 2016 5:51 pm

Roger de Coverly wrote:
soheil_hooshdaran wrote:How I managed to ruin a winning position!
When did you think it was winning? I didn't really see the ending as better for White because of Black's play with the King side pawns.
The Q-side majority was a plus in my position

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Joey Stewart
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Joey Stewart » Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:47 pm

Some positional mistakes I noticed.

1. Letting him trap your rook on a8 which led to...

2. Moving your queenside pawns up early, unsupported by the king - you need the king to be very active in such an endgame to stand good chances of winning.

3. Blundering a bishop, letting it get pinned (Ke3 would have got your king back to defend against the passed pawn.

4. Not bringing your king back onto the queenside to defend - the position COULD be a draw if the rooks came off, as his bishop is the wrong colour to promote the a pawn.
Lose one queen and it is a disaster, Lose 1000 queens and it is just a statistic.

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by MartinCarpenter » Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:57 pm

soheil_hooshdaran wrote:The Q-side majority was a plus in my position
Well, maybe, but not a significant one - black had a perfectly mobile majority too. Just an ending :) If anything his king round move 26 looks a tiny bit more useful than yours.

Calling the position winning seems like a dramatic misevaluation, which (as per sundry books) rather tends to lead to awful play as you end up looking for (fabricating!) lines to justify the mistaken evaluation.

soheil_hooshdaran
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by soheil_hooshdaran » Tue Apr 26, 2016 8:19 am

I lost to a girl, some 350 rating point less than me, in a rapid game:


I know I wasn't lost, but was 15...Bg5 a good move or was anything wrong with it? How can I use the weakness of the dark squares around the White King, or as I own the two Bishops, how can I put the light-squared Bishop to use?
Last edited by soheil_hooshdaran on Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:34 am, edited 1 time in total.

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IM Jack Rudd
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by IM Jack Rudd » Tue Apr 26, 2016 11:20 am

I would have played 15...Qd5 and seen how she was going to defend her e-pawn before doing anything else. By my reckoning, you want your queen and bishop lined up on the long diagonal, and your QR on e8.

Jonathan Rogers
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by Jonathan Rogers » Tue Apr 26, 2016 4:20 pm

I agree, and would add another thing which is frequently overlooked: keep the two bishops! Two bishops are generally much stronger v bishop and knight than is one bishop against one knight. (Of course there are exceptions but this does not look like one of them).

MartinCarpenter
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Re: Where did I went wrong?

Post by MartinCarpenter » Tue Apr 26, 2016 5:30 pm

Also, if you don't want to lose to lower graded opponents, don't play juniors in rapid games :)
(or any kind of game really but certainly not rapid!).

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