Game analysis thread

Sparks

I dunno if we should have a seperate thread for looking at people's games or something else; and I can see great potential for that thread going pear-shaped if people were to mistake the word "critique" with the phrase "**** all over from a great height without ever risking anything themselves"; but I think discussing games like that might be a good thing to have in the forum (and besides, we already do postmortems in the clubs anyway) so for fits and giggles, here's my game from round one in the bodley. Not because it's anything special, but because you have to start somewhere, right?

cdeb

Think it's a great idea. I'll start a new thread with your post to start.

Mod warning not to get personal about people's games! Though it's been very cordial on here lately, thankfully.

Edit - and here we are. I've already looked through the game up the club, but for others - go for it. And post your own games. Doesn't have to be analysis; a nice tactic or an openings novelty would be good too.

checknraise

I can only play through the game up to Rc8 but looking through the game...

Bd6 is a mistake there is no reason not to play Nc6 first. White has a pretty horrible position due to his C pawn. I would also have played Bg4 and not Bf5 as black might be able to gain a tempo with white's potential weaknesses on d4 and b2.

Instead of looking through the game with a computer my advice would be to see what a few GM's did as black in the position after Nf3 although I cant for the life of me figure out what is wrong with whites move order and why he cannot transpose to a regular Panov.

Sparks

checknraise wrote: »

I can only play through the game up to Rc8

It's that stupid PGN viewer module in wordpress, it was getting confused by variations and some of the NAG symbols. Should be fixed now.

but looking through the game...
Bd6 is a mistake

Yup.
There's a few like that in there where my play was far too passive (I get slapped a bit in the postmortems in the club over that, and I'm working on it :pac: )

Instead of looking through the game with a computer my advice would be to see what a few GM's did as black in the position after Nf3

Done that and gone over it in postmortem analysis with the higher-ranked players in the club over the board. The engines still play a role though, and they're pretty snazzy at the ego deflation I find (you know, where you're thinking Ha! I killed it in that game! and the engine goes You did see the mate in one six moves earlier, right? )

although I cant for the life of me figure out what is wrong with whites move order and why he cannot transpose to a regular Panov.

It's not wrong, it's just not mainline. Nothing wrong with that - bar the point that the mainline is the mainline for a good reason, not just because it's someone's arbitrary preference

checknraise

It is not the type of position where your playing passively is the problem. In fact I would say Bd6 is the most aggressive square to put your bishop just not the best.

In the position after white plays Nc3 you have to be thinking long term about your position and where you want to or should place your pieces. If you did that you would see there is no rush in playing Bd6 and that black wants to play Nc6 and Rc8 at some stage anyway. That is why looking through how a GM plays black position is way more important than anything else and obviously a understanding why they made their moves.

It is often easy to get a good position out of the opening by following an opening book but you have to understand the themes in every position which you will only get by playing through GM games or playing many games in a particular line.