Curtains vs PoG

[Stephen H]

I would love to see some annotations of the game by any of the participants if you have time.

[ScottHoward]

ok, you guys ready for pog vs scotthoward?

i promise you it wont last nearly as long as this did, and it wont end in a draw. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[Neil S]

I'd be willing to take on PoG in Go, if only to drum up interest in the game.

[Zurvan]

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I'd be willing to take on PoG in Go, if only to drum up interest in the game.

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This is a great idea. I'd love to see this happen.

I do not understand Go at all, and would love to learn it.

I'd also like to see every move explained to my dumb self, unlike what happened in this game. I quickly got lost in notations [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[durron597]

curtains,

I am surprised you accepted the draw when you had complete control of the center and opposition on us to prevent us eating any paws... as such, I felt like you had a chance to win and we did not (that's why I kept pushing for the drawy repetitive moves). Thoughts?

[StregaChess]

[ QUOTE ]
curtains,

I am surprised you accepted the draw when you had complete control of the center and opposition on us to prevent us eating any paws... as such, I felt like you had a chance to win and we did not (that's why I kept pushing for the drawy repetitive moves). Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

No way, unless we get our knight trapped we have no losing chances at all. His extra pawn on the kingside means nothing at all. "opposition" sorry dude there are minor pieces on the board there is no real opposition to speak of. If you think of this in terms of Zugzwang it makes more sense. Opposition is real and an issue when you are forced to move you king into a losing position, or maintain the opposition to avoid this situation. Our minor pieces can waltz to hell and back, so don't get hung up on the word opposition is not an issue.

A knight is stronger than a bishop with pawns on both sides of the board, so really we're fine. Actually I don't have an programs, but is someone could plug this into Fritz or something it would be great to know what a puter things of the end position.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
curtains,

I am surprised you accepted the draw when you had complete control of the center and opposition on us to prevent us eating any paws... as such, I felt like you had a chance to win and we did not (that's why I kept pushing for the drawy repetitive moves). Thoughts?

[/ QUOTE ]

General principles are nice and all, but if he can't queen a pawn how is he going to win?

Let's say things go bad for us and we lose two pawns to reach this position:

(We are never going to move any of our pawns or capture with them, he will have to play g4, f4, and f5, then capture on g6 with the f-pawn and then the king.)



Since he has no piece that can check us on a light square, we just sit on g8 forever and shuffle our knight. The bishop can only cover 4 of our knight's squares, so as long as we stay away from light squares on the edge, we will have safe places to move. If he tries to use his king to help trap the knight, we march up to g6 and now his bishop will be tied to defending g5. In that case, it won't be much good at trapping the knight. Once the white king goes to the queenside and we get to g6, we can give up the knight to the bishop if it deflects him from g5, since then both pawns fall.

[StregaChess]

Exactly,


Curtains chance of losing > POGS chance of losing

His draw is reasonable considering we have almost zero risk. Our acceptance of draw is reasonable given he's solid player and playing on for a remote chance of swindle is an insult.

Tim, at what level player would you not accept a draw? I’m pretty stubborn back in the day I might have played this out with anyone under 2000.
Last round of tourney, long commute home, 1700+ OK draw I’m going home….

[smilingbill]

Sorta interesting game. Where do you think you went wrong curtains? My positional senses said that White was at least slightly, maybe clearly better after the opening. I still hate our 40.-Nb3 which handed the draw over to curtains, we could have made him sweat more by not letting his king to get on such a good square [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[StregaChess]

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I still hate our 40.-Nb3 which handed the draw over to curtains,

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smilingbill, yep....clearly a pivotal position for us, had we played Kd6 you might be correct that it would increase our winning chances. However it would also increase our losing changes too right? I guess that's the balance in a close position where do you trade off going for the win vs keeping a draw in hand as you try and progress.