Curtains vs PoG

[TimM]

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I will admit this is easily the part of the game where I am the worst. I usually find myself lost at this point. If I were playing I would throw my rooks on both open files and then not have a clue what to do. So I'll try to learn something here.

Is the point of Ne4 to play Qb6 and tie the rook to the f pawn? Also what do we after d4? I hate to push d4 like that with no plan. I see no way to play d3 in the immediate future.

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OK let's look at each move suggested so far...

16...d4 has some ideas of clearing d5 for the black queen, closing the a1-h8 diagonal, and preventing White from dealing with an attack on the e2 pawn by playing e3. I think 17.Qf3 is the only reply we need to look at closely as it does counter our plans. On 17...Re8 he does not need to play 18.Re1 but can instead play 18.Rd1. I don't think this is anything great for black.

16...Qb6 I suggested as a way of getting ...Rc8 in without allowing Qd4, but he can just play 17.Bb2 Rac8 18.Qd3 Rfe8 19.e3 threatening to take our knight and then the d5 pawn, and also Bd4.

16...Ne4 is a way of trying to get out of this battery of bishop and queen aiming at our g7 square before he has a chance to set it up, but I don't think it works. After 17.Qd4 White will have time to play Bb2, and we are just going to be stuck to defending our d-pawn soon with no counterplay.

16...Rc8 does occupy the open file with tempo, but that queen has to move anyway so we can always keep this in reserve. White might prefer to reply with 17.Qd3, which protects e2 in advance, and keeps c2 covered for the moment. Bg5 or Bb2 are coming, followed by contesting the c-file with Rfc1.

16...Re8 attacks the one weak pawn in White's position. Should he play 17.e3 we no longer have to worry about Bg5, and the light squares around White's king have been weakened. Now I like 17...Rc8, if 18.Qd4 Rc2, or after 18.Qd3 maybe 18...Ne4 19.Bb2 and now we have options like 19...Nc5 or 19...Qg5. If 17.Re1 Rc8 again. The rook is just awkwardly placed on e1. On 17.Qd3 we can continue the attack on the pawn with 17...Qe7, which is not threatening if our rook were on c8 instead of e8, of course. But now he needs to defend the pawn and also worry about Qe4+.

So far 16...Re8 is the best idea I've seen. It seems to cause more problems for White than the other moves.

[Lori]

I'm not as good as many of the people in this thread, but I like Re8 with a view to trying to play Ne4 and f5 to create a little counterplay before he can coordinate his pieces.

Edit: With that in mind, is Qe7 playable, or is there some instant disaster if that is played?

Lori

[TimM]

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Edit: With that in mind, is Qe7 playable, or is there some instant disaster if that is played?

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I think that allows Bg5 since Ne4 Bxe7 Nxc3 Bxf8 is not playable. And Qe4+ f3 Qxe2+ Rf2 followed by Bxf6 is pretty destructive.

Strega:

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Sort figured after b3, he's not really thinking about Bg5. I think the message is that he likes his bishop and is not looking to trade in the near future....

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True but sometimes that Bg5 move will wreck our position so badly that of course he will play it in that case. We'd like to trade his e-pawn for our d-pawn, not our g-pawn.

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did you consider him playing 17. Qf3

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(after 16...Re8)

I think we can still play Qe7 there (Bg5 Qxe2 Bxf6 Qxf3+), or maybe Ne4.

[xorbie]

timm,

16...d4
17. Qf3 Re1
18. Rd1 Ne4

eh? i think Bb2 still has some problems, eventually we would want to move the knight over to block the diagonal i think, and move the queen to d5 and sort of clog up the whole middle, attacking his pawns.

[TimM]

xorbie:

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16...d4
17. Qf3 Re1
18. Rd1 Ne4

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19.Bb2 is bad (19...Ng5!) but he has 19.Be3 winning our d-pawn because of the pin against our queen.

Strega:

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Two pawn islands vs four, ouch... could be bad.

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Yeah but one of our islands is a passed extra pawn that will be hard to win back. And we have alternatives too.

Stephen H:

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What happens after
16 ... d4
17 Qf3 Qd5

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Both of those lines after 18.Qxd5 and 18.Rd1 look good for white. Our d-pawn is very weak. If we do play d4 it needs to give us something very quickly or we will just lose that pawn. If we can't get his queen off that f3 square shielding the king it's hard to do anything that's worth the loss of this pawn. He just has to watch out for Ne4-g5 but that's not hard to prevent.

aaronk56:

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16...d4
17. Qf3 Re8
18. Rd1 Nd5

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19.Rxd4

[The Yugoslavian]

curtains,

How long are you spending generally to go over each move so far?

Yugoslav

[grando]

I vote Re8

[curtains]

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curtains,

How long are you spending generally to go over each move so far?

Yugoslav

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So far....most I've spent on a move has maybe been 5 minutes [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] But I haven't been in danger of losing where I need to make some big calculations just yet. Actually a spent quite a bit of time on Qb3...that was maybe my longest think. I wanted to go Qd1 instead but got scared of a few problems involving my a2 pawn. Perhaps my fears were irrelevant. Maybe spent 10 minutes on that move?

[StregaChess]

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(after 16...Re8)

I think we can still play Qe7 there (Bg5 Qxe2 Bxf6 Qxf3+), or maybe Ne4.

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That's the line I had concerns with, Qxf3.
Two pawn islands vs four, ouch... could be bad.
However rook endings at tricky, my gut is that we might be OK but white's rooks are going to more active!?

[StregaChess]

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So far 16...Re8 is the best idea I've seen. It seems to cause more problems for White than the other moves.

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Well back to work, still sick... and only played this out in my head, so if you can trust a blindfolded sinus infected mind....looks good. So after posting this I'm editing it as I had a second thought... did you consider him playing 17. Qf3

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Should he play 17.e3 we no longer have to worry about Bg5,

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Sort figured after b3, he's not really thinking about Bg5. I think the message is that he likes his bishop and is not looking to trade in the near future....