Author: Bruce Moreland
Date: 22:59:12 05/21/00
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On May 21, 2000 at 22:59:20, Michael Neish wrote: > >>There are a couple of obvious things. >> >>1. Bg4 is silly. After f3, it has to retreat. > >Thanks for the reply. Do you think Fritz played that move because it thought >that f3, driving the Bishop away, would weaken White's Pawn structure? If so, >it would have considered it a worthwhile sortie. > >About locked positions -- there are certain themes that seem to recur in >positions of this kind. The sort of locked positions one gets coming out of >certain openings seem to be very similar to each other (and long lasting), >similar and long-lasting enough that I think one could check for the occurrence >of these structures before entering Search(), in PreEval() and change some >parameters accordingly, such as command of space, King Safety bonuses for the >proximity of the enemy's Pawns, mobility factors for Bishops blocked behind >their own locked Pawns, etc. It seems a very simple idea -- do you think it >would work? I'm trying to do something along these lines (for simpler >positions, mind you), but it's too early to tell whether they have a net >positive effect. > >>2. after f4, black needs to play ef, rather than allowing the pawn to be >>pushed to f5. After f5, white has lots of space on the kingside, and the pawn >>roller is hard to stop. Black, meanwhile, has a locked center to play with and >>has a hard time defending on the kingside with so little space there. > >Seems very sensible. But after f5 can Black still hold the game? If so, how? > >Cheers, > >Mike. After 13. f5 black is dicked, because all the eventual open lines are going to come at a time of white's choosing, and they will all favor white. After that move, black is the golf ball, it is teed up, and white is Tiger Woods. I think black played without plan starting with 9. ... Bg4. Perhaps it got confused because it didn't see a good pawn break, and perhaps it didn't help that white's structural king safety look poor. What is black trying to do? Black wants to take advantage of the fact that white's king hasn't castled. But black doesn't do this, black fiddles around and lets white get a hammer lock on the k-side, the center, and the q-side. You can't do that and win. I think the game is lost for black after 13. f5. Around move 12 or so black needs to break the position open and make white think about his king safety. Black doesn't do this, and instead fritters around during the crucial moment during which white can remove black's potential ... f5 pawn break. I think 12. ... b6 was a complete stinker since f4 is coming. Black needs to deal with this, since black absolutely cannot allow f4 followed by f5. Assuming that 12. ... b6 is played, Bob has suggested 13. ... exf4 in response to 13. f4. Mine won't play 13. ... exf4, because it is frightened about the open lines into its own position. If it was forced to deal with this position, it would mess up and lose quickly. Perhaps it's a bad plan anyway, because white might be able to consolidate his center and his king, but perhaps black can get in ... f5 and do some chopping. Regardless, mine won't let the g-file open into its king like this, and I think that's a rational fear, in the general case, for a program, so I'm not coming down on it harshly. It'd be a matter of choosing which way it wants to screw itself up, and I don't mind that it would pick the wrong one. I hold out more hope for the possibility of avoiding the position by avoiding 12. ... b6. I had the idea that 12. ... Ne8, intending to meet 13. f4 by 13. ... f5, could be the way to go. I set up the position before black's 12th move and I was happy that mine would adopt this plan. That's how I want it to play, even if the plan is bad. I want it to understand that you do not let a human play f4 and f5 against you when you are castled k-side and there is an e4/e5 ram. Fritz could use this knowledge too, I think. This game isn't particularly hard to improve upon because anything has to be better than what happened in the game, and that is important to remember when deciding whether you should declare yourself to be smarter than Fritz. But I think this plan would help prevent black from getting so badly attacked, and might cause white to regret his king safety choices. I am about a 2000 USCF player so take what I say with a grain of salt. bruce
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