This is the position from English symmetrical opening, when chosen setup for Black was the favorite setup of legendary player, Robert James Fischer.
I reached this position in Manhem´s chess week in Gothenburg, in the third round against Norwegian International Master, Thorsten Bae.
Bae did not played the critical lines, and he tried to avoid possible opening preparation.
However, his choice was very good as you can see in the comment of the game.
The real problems for Black in this variation starts with Bologan´s recommendation.
Bologan´s choice to put the knight on f5 in order to avoid the mass exchanges on d4 and d5 leading to immediate draw (among huge numbers of the games you can look at Predojevic-Bejtovic Sarajevo 2013) is not so good as you can see from the my games against Marley Grandelius, and now against Thorsten Bae.
It proves that Black did not stopped White in playing d2-d4, and at the end the best what he can do is to open this position on the diagram, and that is exactly what Bae did.
The question now is what should White do?
Should I exchange on f5 or c6 ?
In the very lively report on the Manhem chess club website, you could read that I could exchange on f5 obtaining some advantage, while the exchange on c6 was more peacefully.
This was probably written by a huge influence of computer engines and the result of the game.
The truth is that the exchange on f5 does not lead to any stable advantage and that the real path to advantage leads by exchange on c6.
In that case White will get long lasting advantage due to dominant position on the knight on e4.
Black has weaknesses on d6 and along the long diagonal.
How sensitive is the Black´s position can be seen by the game continuation.
This is the position that we reached after some of inaccurate moves by Black (not real mistakes, just inaccurate moves).
The truth is that White is already winning here!
Your task is to find it, and for the right solution you can look at the game comments bellow.
This game shows my mood in Gothenburg, as it was played in the third round, and this was already my second missed win (for the first look at the previous article and the game against Rozentalis).
Instead of putting pressure on Black I just played logical moves and took a draw in the position when I was still clearly better. My advantage was small my clear.
Here is the game for those who likes to look at the details.
What about 9.g4... and 10. Kd6 +
ReplyDelete9. g4?!... 10. Kd6+ plan is good or not?
ReplyDeleteIn the case of 9. g4 Black would play 9...d5.
ReplyDeleteDuring the game I tried to calculate consenquencies of 10. exd5, exd5 11. gxf5 (If 11. Qa4 then 11...Nfe7),dxe4 12. Qa4, gxf5!
Now if I take on c6 with a check, Black would play Bd7 and take on f3 in the next move.
As you can see, I would never get a chance to check on d6 with my knight. I can enter some complications, which I calculated, but Black would be ok.