Vote Chess: Game 3

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

A very complex position if white plays 19. Nxe5 instead of 19. Bc3. [...]

Thanks.
Just out of interest, did you use software help to come up with those lines or did you work them out entirely unaided (as we were required to do while playing)?

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Thanks.
Just out of interest, did you use software help to come up with those lines or did you work them out entirely unaided (as we were required to do while playing)?

Done on my own over about 3 hours today. I have lots of free time when I'm in town. (I'm self employed.)

Since this is the post-mortem, I did confirm that the final position of the variations were reasonable with Fritz. It would be interesting to do computer analysis on every half-move that I came up with and see if there is something better for either side.

Back in the day, I did enjoy pouring over correspondence positions for days at a time. I got a little OCD with it. Alas, I had to give it up. It was taking up too much of my time.

[WMHalsdorf]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Can you explain why you think the resulting position where you would be ahead two knights for a rook is not a winning position? Black has plenty of time to activate the knights. At this juncture, white could not stop him from ultimately posting a knight on b4, a powerful position.

The question is how best to mobilize the knights without destroying the pawn structure.

[davar55]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Yes it is "off". The opening by black was decent but the middle game was quite weak. From move 17 on, black made several inaccuracies and errors. Correspondence games as a general rule should not end in ~30 moves with the final position shown to be a forced mate. Sorry guys if I sound a little harsh. I played a lot of correspondence chess back in the day. I was ~1700 USCF rated over-the-board and ~2100 rated correspondence so I have a little background in this stuff.

If I recall correctly it was legal for the players in this game to use opening databases...just not software to analyze positions. So it is highly likely that one or both sides were using an opening database...so it is unlikely that there would be a blunder early.

As third and least qualified black team member, I can unqualifiedly say the opening was made without an engine or
a database, and came as a pleasantly unexpected surprise to me, a double gambit as I saw it. At a certain point, I
wanted to make a more aggressive Queen move, but wasn't confident enough to press the point. For all I know, it
might have made us lose quicker. But I thought my teammates played defensively very well.

About the 20th move we had the weaker position, and while we fought on, losing any ground as black is almost
surely a prelude to a loss. It's hard to consider as blunders moves that merely fail to draw - if a win is the goal,
one may take into account the possibility of poor play by one's opponents, which did not occur in this game.
Congrats to our opponents, thanks for a solid, interesting game.