Saturday is the greatest word in the English language.
At the end of my last post, I came up with 5 things I wanted to do to analyze Game 1 of my World Open tournament.
Those 5 things were:
1) Look at games that have 4. g3
2) Look at games that have 6. Nxc6
3) Look at games that have 6. e3
4) Look at games that have 6. Be3
5) Look at games that have 7. Bd2
To look for these games, I need to use a chess database. You can learn about how to find and use chess databases in my post A Beginner's Guide, Chess Databases [Coming soon!].
For the purpose of the this post, I used New In Chess Base Online. The NICBase has 66 total games after 3...g6. White has played 6 different moves on move 4. These are 4. a3 (1 game), 4. b3 (14 games), 4. d3 (1 game), 4. d4 (44 games), 4. g3 (2 games), 4. Rb1 (1 game).
So as it turns out, one move is by far the most popular 4th move for White, and I played this move. NICBase is not complete by any means, and popularity does not always mean a move is the best. However, this sends a strong signal to me that 4. d4 in my game may not be the best place to look for alternatives or improvements.
Also noteworthy is the fact that the second most popular move, 4. b3, is a move I did not consider. Thus, despite not having it on my to do list above, I should look at some of these games.
First, though, lets start with the original idea for an alternative, 4. g3. There are only two games, so lets look at both of them. Of these two games, White won one game and Black won the other. Lets be pessimistic for the moment and look at the game that Black won.
Well, before we even get to the game something is screaming at me right now! Can you see what it is? White is rated about 400 points lower than Black is. At any level that is a lot, but at top level chess that is huge. For the highest levels, even 100 or so points can signify a large difference in playing ability. This is largely because unlike games in the 1000 to 2000 range, games at the highest level have less variance with regard to outcome. A 1400 level player can beat an 1800 level player pretty easily if the 1800 level player blunders away a piece or completely bungles an ending. At the higher levels, these types of random occurrences are less frequent, such that the winner of the chess game has to out play there opponent. Of course, if when the 1800 player blunders his piece he is getting out played just like when the 2200 player misjudges his piece activity in an ending. So it is not like the things are totally different, but there is some difference.
Anyway, that the above all means that we shouldnt take this game too seriously. Sure, Black won, but Black could easily have had a worse or much worse position out of the opening. White may have simply bungled the end game or what have you.
Lets get to the game. Black responds to 4. g3 with 4...Nd4. Black then exchanges this Knight for the f3 Knight. After some normal looking developing moves, we get to the following position after 7...Nh6.
Here, White plays 8. b3. This is a fairly committal move for White. I am not so sure about it, either. On the one hand, it neutralizes Black's g7 Bishop, but on the other hand, it takes a lot of the dynamic potential out of White's pawn structure. In these c4/c5 English type positions, a plan of a3 and b4 (or a6 and b5 for Black) undermining the c pawn can be one of the main ways to open up the position and get some piece activity for one of the sides. By playing b3, White doesnt necessarily eliminate this plan, but it does make it much slower.
Further, Black has not committed himself much at all with his pawns. Thus, Black will be in a good position to respond to any pawn structure changes White makes. Lastly, White has quite a few good waiting moves. A waiting move is a move that doesnt necessarily do much of anything, but is helpful and generally good. These moves solidify a players position and allow him to wait and see what his opponent's plans are. Whichever player plays the waiting move will then have an informational advantage in making his next moves.
The most obvious waiting move in this position for White is Bg2. The Light Squared Bishop is very rarely well placed on f3. There, it blocks the f pawn, does not protect the vulnerable h3 square, and is much more susceptible to harassment then it would be on g2.
There are other waiting moves that White could play. 0-0 and Re1 or Rd1 might be worthwhile.
On the other hand, it is always easy to be critical of the losing players moves in early stages when that player's play was fine. So for now, lets just say I am skeptical of White's 8th move, but it is hardly a bad move.
I think it is best to skip to White's 13th move 0-0-0. The moves from 8 to 12 all seem fairly natural. Here is the position after 13. 0-0-0.
I basically just dont like this move at all. Given the f2-g3-h4/f7-g6-h5 pawn structure on the King side, and the fact that White's Light Squared Bishop is on the f3 square, it just seems like the King side attack will be opened much more slowly than the Queen side. Further, White's Queen side pawn structure a2-b3-c4 is one of the easier pawn structures to break open. Black can play a5-a4-axb3 and now he has an open a file leading right at White's King. In the end, this is actually what Black does, though he is careful to prepare it properly.
White also didnt really need to do this, as far as I can tell. This may be one area where the rating difference starts to mess up any objective analysis, though. If White were to castle King side, he would have a decent but not very big advantage over Black's position primarily because of his ability to use the d5 square. Maybe White was worried that in a long positional grinder, Black would be able to out last him. Maybe White needed or wanted a win at this point in the tournament and was willing to take a 1 out of 3 chance at the win, rather than try and play for a draw.
For the purposes of this post, however, I think we can pretty much end our analysis here. White has some interesting ideas up to this point, and the following position
looks pretty good to me. A plan here like d3, a3, b4, then move the Rooks and other pieces around to break something open looks promising.
Ok, now lets look at the other 4. g3 game, the one where White wins.
Here, we do not actually have the ratings for both players so we cant make any pre judgments about the quality the moves. That is not a big deal.
In this game, Black responds to 4. g3 with 4...b6. There are a bunch of normal looking moves, so lets skip to the position after 10...Nce7.
The first thing I think about this position is Benoni. White is going to have the e4-d5 pawn structure, and Black will have counterplay down the Queen side. It is pretty rare, as far as I know, for White to fianchetto his light squared Bishop in the Benoni. Black's light squared Bishop is also not exactly well placed on the b7 square.
I would be very happy with this position as White.
White, on his 13th move plays a4.
This is a nice move that does a lot of things. First, it slows down Black's counterplay on the Queen side by controlling the b5 square. Second, it allows White to move his Knight to c4 without fear of harassment. The Knight is very well placed on c4. It controls the e5 square, and it also gets out of the way of White's dark squared Bishop.
On move 20, White finds the good move 20. g4.
I am not doing this analysis with my computer (it is good to attempt this stuff with just your brain!), so I am not exactly sure what the tactics are that make this move possible.
My guess, though, is that if Black played 20...fxg4 White would respond 21. f5, possibly with some helpful intermediary move. If Black doesnt play 21...gxf5, White can play 22. fxg6 and Black's King position looks pretty loose. If Black does play 21...gxf5 then White can respond 22. exf5 and is threatening Qg5+ with bad things happening to Black.
Notice that Black's Light Squared Bishop, Queen side Rook, Queen, and even Knight and King side Rook are all to a certain degree poorly placed to deal with an attack against Black's King.
For White, it looks to me like only his light squared Bishop or Knight will have difficulty getting into the attack. I say or because one of them will be able to use the e4 square and get into the attack very quickly.
I am not going to spend as much time as I probably should on trying to figure out the tactics in this position. So, I will just conclude by saying that White has a nice attack at this point.
I will just briefly mention that White starts a nice combination with 26. Bxf6+.
White is able to pin the f6 Knight to Black's King, and this pin eventually allows him to invade Black's position with his Queen. He wins the d6 pawn, and everything after that is pretty much clean up.
Well, this seems like a good place to stop for now. I think in the end, my conclusion on 4. g3 can be fairly positive but not exactly enticing. In these positions, it is seems very important to be careful with your pawn moves. If you commit your pawns too early, the other side can take advantage of this.
In the first game, we saw Black close up the center and attack down the Queen side. This might not have been as big a deal if White had castled King side.
In the second game, we saw White transpose to something similar to the Benoni. Black's pieces were not set up all that well for this pawn structure, especially Black's light squared Bishop. The Bishop was left without a job while White prepared an attack against Black's King. Black was able to thwart White's attack against his King, but this cost him in the end game.
Finally, I have added something to my to do list, and that is look over 4. b3 games.
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