Author: Ricardo Gibert
Date: 20:52:08 01/20/04
Go up one level in this thread
On January 20, 2004 at 21:22:47, Geoff wrote: >Hi > >I was just looking at a game my program lost to see where it went wrong > >[D]r3k2r/pp1n1ppp/2p2nb1/3p4/3P4/1QN1PPq1/PP2B1N1/R1B2RK1 b kq - 0 2 > >I am a fairly weak chess player but looking at the above position my intuition >that the position is about equal must be wrong? CM9000 reckons that white is >ahead by at about +1.6. >I would say that although black is approx 1 pawn down on material, its position >is fairly solid, and blacks queen is starting to really mess up whites king >safety. blacks bishop is nicely placed, knights are ok too and blacks pawn >structure is sound, blacks king is not under pressure. >Hence I guessed it looked about equal, my program also reckoned so with a score >of 0.01. > >Where is my intuiton wrong on this one, at a glance what should tell me white >has got a good advantage ? > > Regards Geoff You seem happy with Blacks minors, but the truth is they contribute little activity. Optically speaking they are all developed on normal squares, but they have no where to go. Of the 3, the Black B is the best of a poor lot. To get an idea of how brittle Black's position is, look how fast Black goes down for the count with a natural continuation like 1...o-o-o, e.g. 2.e4! de4 3.Bf4 Qh3 4.Nb5 wins. Or If 2...Nb6 3.Qa3 a6 4.Bf4 Qh3 5.Bxa6! wins. If instead 1...Nb6 2.a4! with the idea 3.a5 and 4.Qxb7 e.g. 4...o-o-o to defend the b-pawn, but 5.a5 Nbd7 6.e4! Nb8 (6...Nh5 7.exd5) 7.Bf4 Qh3 8.Nb5 wins. It looks like o-o-o is a no-no, but if 1...Rb8 2.e4 threatens 3.Bf4. If 1...Qc7 2.e4, since 2...dxe4 3.fxe4 Nxe4 4.Nxe4 Bxe4 5.Qxf7+ is crushing, so at best, the Black Q will get cutoff from the K-side by an eventual e4-e5. On 1..b6 2.Ba6 looks good, while 1...b5 2.a4 is also good for White. This leaves us with sac'ing the b-pawn with 1...h5!? when 2.Qxb7 Rb8 3.Qxc6 h4 4.Nxd5 Nxd5 5.Qxd5 h3 6.f4 Bf5 7.Qf3 Qg6 is not so clear, but again 2.e4! instead is good for White.
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