There's the small matter of 12...Ng6 13.g4 Nxf4, of course, but once the f4-bishop moves, Black will just about have to exchange on f3. White won't mind that at all...

No! If 12...Nf5 13. g4 wins a piece. ur right ionadowman

A Glenfiddich moment, huh?

Not that bad actually  

No, its not that bad, the king is now stuck in a central position and the h rook is now hard to activate, it's quite clearly better than castling. I feel sorry for you graeme, playing at 4 in the morning, how do you do it? i'd probably wouldn't even remember the rules if i tried playing at that time.

I have to say I am guilty as charged. I dont think it was 4am though . Several pints of amber nectar had been guzzled , probaly made me play better though

Looks pretty neat to me.

Yes, it was, but I think I would choose the move played as well. It is more in keeping with White's plan to attack the K-side.

Bh2 does little to help the kingside attack. As ion states this is probably better.

How about gxf? When f4-f5 looks nice (white rids of the doubled pawns) and gets the g file.

The recapture 14.Bxf3 is an interesting decision. The "natural" move here would seem to be 14.Nxf3, maintaining as much protection as possible on the vital e5-square. It supports a possible advance along the h-file as well. Below, far1ey suggests the pawn capture, to open the g-file. Worth a look, and it goes well with the Kf1, but I have a feeling it might prove somewhat inflexible, as the doubled pawns do seem to be getting in the way of White's minor pieces. A judgement call, I guess...

The one plus side of Bxc3 is that it enables Ke2, with the a rook suddenly avaliable white can really go to work on a kingside attack, so i'm the defender of baron. Far1ey's idea seems pretty clever, an open file on a row where your opponents castled (as tag probably will) is always nice, but would it be worth it for the temporary loss of the minor pieces? Who knows!

White is all set up for a K-side attack, and I think now would have been a good time to go ahead with it. Something like 15.Ke2, 16.Rag1 comes to mind. Or 15.g3, with 16.h4 to follow with moves like a further advance of the h-pawn, or Kg2, Rg1, Qd1 and Kf1 if that advance is resisted by ....h5. The text move (it seems to me) weakens c3, the base of White's pawn chain, with a Black rook already placed to attack that weakness.

? A mistake if white wanted to play something like this b4 is better when black should probably take ep. Along with ion's suggestions I would think that Bg4 f4-f5 is also possible.

Why do i bother writing stuff if someone repeats it on the next move! (i promise i wrote it BEFORE i read this part!) This move is a bit of a waste, i can't see what he's going to accomplish on the queenside at this time, he should be going for a kingside charge as quickly as possible.

The kingside charge is hard to make, and the black king is safe in the center anyway.

The right move seems to be 16.b4, completely locking down the Q-side, whereat White can launch his K-side action without much interference from Black ... and he still has in reserve a2-a4 should it become desirable to switch the action to the other wing. White would have had just about all the play - not a whole lotta fun for Black. All of which indicates that Black ought to have exchanged on b3 (15...cxb3) to open up that side of the board for his own counteraction. That seems to lead to a more even fight.

Can't think of anything different to write.

But can you keep the open file...

With the closed centre the king is safe and white should now hack k-side.

White has problems. Obviously by Rab1 he intended to do something on the queenside, but now it seems he wants to use it for the kingside, in which case he completely wasted his last move. Always make sure your decisive and know which plan to follow, and stick to it! A more pressing concern though is the threat of f5. Not only does this start a counter-charge for black on the kingside, it threatens to trap the black bishop, and black will gain a nice open f file if white takes, so thats not really an option... looks like Graeme played Ke2 a bit too late.

If I hadnt mucked up my castling I wouldnt need to be doing this now. Not ideal but its the price I have to pay

tag's a bit too concerned about fighting for an open file, sometimes following the 'book principles' isn't always best! you should go along with my idea!

Dubious but I am not sure of improvments. Exchanging all the rooks and queens as in the game seems to give black a nice positional advantage due to the closed position. (knights will be better than bishops.) One idea is to conserve the rooks with Rbf1 and bring the bishops to the c file (Bc1 and Bc2) when there is no chance of rook infltration along the b file because the bishops cover all the entry squares. Unfortunately white does not have enough time for this maneuvre...

With the threat of f5, i'd be quite happy to exchange powerful pieces if i were white, so Rxb8 probably would have been best

Black has the edge here: the c3-square is weak, and the defence is handicapped by the bishop pair. Black's bishop is the right one: a "good bishop" that can reach c3 - provided Black doesn't play ...a5, of course!

Agreed black can attack c3 more times than white can defend. Unfortuantely attacking it is harder than it looks because the knights will struggle to get around to attacking it as the only square to transfer his pieces is via a5. Therefore I would like to attack a4 another weakness. This can be done by marching the king to a5 and the knight to b6. What does white do? He can only defend the pawn once via Bd1 (The bishop covers a3 and the pawn b3 preventing the king from defending while the knight cannot maneuvre to defend a4.

I disagree with both of you, sorry! I actually think it's really close. you say the c square is weak, but what can black actually do to attack it? And white can do something with his bishops, something like Nb1 followed by Bc1 will give the black bishop and knight jobs to do on the queenside, or possibly Ke1 then Bd1 will get the white bishop involved. Graemes latest move hasn't helped that idea though, as the white bishop wouldn't be able to reach a4. there are other options besides those for white as well, so i think white's fine.

I think black should first get an outpost on the kingside, with Ba3, Ne7, g6, h5, and Nf5

The other scheme was ...Bd8 aiming for ...Ba5

Hmm I dont really like ion's idea because the a5 is needed for the knights to get in.

Not really, the knight will struggle to get involved from a5.

looks fine, but white would like to play Ba4, see the problems his move of a4 is causing?

This seems a bit irrelevent though, since the pieces are running like mad hares over to the queenside. White should go For Bc1 then Ba3. After the exchance of bishops the game could start to head for a draw.

Thumbs up to that.