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ANNOTATED GAME

A Knight for Two Pawns (same as in town)
quinnbag (1274) vs. jsiehler (1477)
Annotated by: jsiehler (1845)
Chess opening: Benko's opening (A00), reversed Alekhine
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Pages: 12
1. g3 e5
I'm not familiar with this opening, so I just play a classical style. I can't see any reason for black to prefer one center pawn over the other. d5 seems to be marginally the more popular response, as it turns out.

 
2. Bg2 Nf6 3. e4 Nc6 4. d3 d5 5. Bg5
This is probably the most sensible way to develop that bishop at this point, and it's one of the moves that really established the character of the game...
3 comments
 
5... d4
...because it allows this pawn advance to lock up the center pretty rigidly. White's going to have to look for opportunities to make his finachettoed light-square bishop effective.
1 comment
 
6. Bxf6 Qxf6
Black's pretty happy with the exchange, as it leaves his queen in a nice place, with no minor pieces likely to threaten it in the short term.

 
7. Nf3
At this point, things felt fairly equal to me (playing as black), but it seemed like the one advantage that was up for grabs was queenside space. A lot of lines I tried ended with white dominating that space, so...
1 comment
 
7... Bb4+
...this check looks kind of pointless, since it can be blocked (and indeed counterproductive, since white's pawns are going to advance while I retreat my bishop)...

 
8. c3 Bc5 9. b4 Nxb4 10. cxb4 Bxb4+
...but the point was to exchange the knight for a better claim on the space. At this point, you can read the shape of the rest of the game: white's going to be trying to loosen up his pieces and form them into an attack force, and black will just (1) ward off any threats as they come and (2) advance a pawn whenever possible. The feasibility of (1) is the key question, of course. I reckoned that white's inactive bishop on g2 meant that the actual active material was still pretty even. I simply haven't got enough experience to decide if this was a really sound plan or not; perhaps readers will weigh in. The computer strongly dislikes it, but the hoped-for advantage is a rather far-off one.
1 comment
 
11. Kf1
I was expecting 11. Nbd2. I'm not sure what the motivation for Kf1 was, but white's king's rook probably would have argued against it.
1 comment
 
11... Qe7
This was a flat-out mistake. White could now take the e-pawn safely, 12. Nxe5 and free his own e-pawn to advance. If white recaptures with 12...Qxe5, then 13.Qa4+ regains the material with increased mobility for white, too. Black could have ruled out the pesky check by simply 11...O-O.
1 comment
 
12. a3 Bd6 13. Nh4 Bd7
Black's just clearing out the back rank so that the rooks can move freely and back up pawns as needed.

 
14. Nf5 Qf6 15. g4
White's steadily building up pressure on the kingside...

 
15... O-O 16. Nd2
...and swinging another piece that direction.

 
16... b5
If 16..c5, which was my initial thought, then white has the option to bring his knight to c4, which seemed troublesome. b5, at least, limits that.

 
17. Nf3 a5
The Plan: push a pawn whenever possible.

 
18. h4 Rab8 19. h5 Bxf5
There was just too much attacking force building up near my king, so this exchange damps it down again. In general, since I'm trying to win with pawns, I don't have many objections to exchanging off pieces.
1 comment
 
20. gxf5
The computer doesn't seem to indicate any strong advantage to capturing with the e-pawn or the g-pawn, but I would have been strongly inclined, as white, to get that e-pawn off of my bishop's diagonal.

 
20... h6 21. Qd2 a4 22. Rb1 Bxa3
I'm not sure if that pawn was an oversight, or if it was a calculated loss. I had to think quite a bit about whether I should grab it, or whether that would just cost me time. It seems like 22. Qb1 would have put a watcher on the b-pawn without abandoning white's own a-pawn.

 
23. Qa5 c6 24. Qc7 Rfe8 25. Nh2
This looked like a strangely backward move at first glance, but it makes sense: the black queen is trying to do several jobs at the moment, and maneuvering the knight to g4 where it can harass her is natural.

 
25... Qd6
In fact, I didn't want to hassle with staving that off, so another damping exchange is offered...

 
26. Qxd6
...and accepted.
2 comments
 

Pages: 12