[Mentalist]

yeah, since white has the fiancetto going, e4, followed by d5 leaves us in an unpleasant position.
Hell, even if we play d5, that still looks to end badly.

[Use Of Weapons]

And my move is, indeed, e4, capitalising on my central dominance and also threatening your isolated g pawn, opening up that black diagonal for my bishop.
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[Whiskey Bass]

E5

[Use Of Weapons]

e5? Curious. Now, I have a number of options. I feel completely unthreatened by e5, and am tempted to take your pawn on g5, pinning your knight against the queen. Alternatively, I could play Ne2, protecting my d pawn and opening up a kingside castle should I feel threatened by the potential of the semi-open e file.

Hmm. I think I like the Bishop move best. Bishop takes on G5: Bxg5

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[Mentalist]

Be7

suffice it to say, we are conducting this game less than stellar

[Use Of Weapons]

I think it's because you're not really talking through options like you were doing in previous games.

Be7 is a decent response, though I'd have been tempted by Bg7 myself, as your Queen has an escape route from the pin and Bg7 protects the knight and offers some support to your solitary central pawn.

I'm not going to move tonight, but my current thinking is that Ne2 is the best move for me, supporting my pawn on d4 and preparing for castling, while also not blocking the bishop diagonal. I'm also eyeing up a potential Qb3 move, looking a the diagonal and a strike down the b file should your white-square bishop desert its post anytime soon.

[Sir Thursday]

UseOfWeapons, on 03 September 2011 - 09:56 PM, said:

I think it's because you're not really talking through options like you were doing in previous games.

Be7 is a decent response, though I'd have been tempted by Bg7 myself, as your Queen has an escape route from the pin and Bg7 protects the knight and offers some support to your solitary central pawn.

I'm not going to move tonight, but my current thinking is that Ne2 is the best move for me, supporting my pawn on d4 and preparing for castling, while also not blocking the bishop diagonal. I'm also eyeing up a potential Qb3 move, looking a the diagonal and a strike down the b file should your white-square bishop desert its post anytime soon.

Yeah, I would probably have recommended Bg7 here as well. As it stands, the early g5 was kind of useless now as we don't have the fianchetto'ed bishop to show for it on the Kingside, and now playing d6 to free our light-squared bishop has the side-effect of blocking in our dark-squared bishop. Anyway, it's been played now, no point in crying about it.

As far as what to do now, I think we need to take a look at Qb6 (assuming White doesn't play Qb3). Looks like we might be able to get some initiative back that way. We've also got to consider d6 - though it does block in one bishop to free the other, we need to get castled and that's going to have to happen on the Queenside. The other viable move I see is h6, kicking the bishop away. I quite like this one, because the Bishop will be forced to retreat to e3 or d2 where it is far less useful.

If White plays Ne2, under no circumstances should we play exd4. That just lets white get his Knight to d4 and then f5, where it will be very strong, and opens up the possibility of him playing f4 followed by e5 at some point...which wouldn't be nice at all.

ST

[Whiskey Bass]

UseOfWeapons, on 03 September 2011 - 09:56 PM, said:

I think it's because you're not really talking through options like you were doing in previous games.

imo the collective isnt large enouth to justify move discussions, one or two posters are basicly calling the shots and i feel like my game is just not up to their level.

so i will leave you chaps to it

[Use Of Weapons]

Aw, well I hope you look in to see what's going on now and again!

My response to Be7: Ng1e2


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[Tapper]

Every game, I feel the forum has a major disadvantage in that we under develop. A few players bring out pieces, others use those for bold moves, and then we're forced to retreat. Mafia has distinctly cut into my interest and time to play Forum Chess, hence my relatively low amount of postage in this game and the past one. I strongly advise against castling king side, and if we want to develop a queen side castling, we need to free both our queen and Bc8 from its current position, preferably by opening the c8-h3 diagonal. d5 would be the bold move (one that incidentally opens up our entire centre), d4 is less spectacular but has a major disadvantage in that it reduces Be7 to a completely defensive piece.

Qd8-d7 might be a good move to set up castling as well as protect our rather undeveloped centre. I'm all OK with playing a flanking game but we definately can't surrender the middle part of the board without a fight.

[Mentalist]

d5 is certainly bold. it's also pretty suicidal at this stage

I think we should play Qb6, then somehting like h6 to resolve the bishop situation, our strongest pint of attack in the centre would be d4. if we can force d5 from white, it may work to our advantage as well.
and I agree that we need to castle queenside. that's not really up for discussion, imo.

while I may have been a bit rash with Be7 (g7 would be more logical in line with g5, I agree), I wanted the bishop to interpose the pin in case UoW made a push in the centre, tat required us to use the knight.

[Sir Thursday]

Mentalist, on 04 September 2011 - 08:44 PM, said:

d5 is certainly bold. it's also pretty suicidal at this stage

I think we should play Qb6, then somehting like h6 to resolve the bishop situation, our strongest pint of attack in the centre would be d4. if we can force d5 from white, it may work to our advantage as well.
and I agree that we need to castle queenside. that's not really up for discussion, imo.

while I may have been a bit rash with Be7 (g7 would be more logical in line with g5, I agree), I wanted the bishop to interpose the pin in case UoW made a push in the centre, tat required us to use the knight.

If we're going to play h6, I reckon it would be better to do it before Qb6. White is going to have to retreat the bishop to e3 or d2. If the Queen is already on b6, it's a no-brainer to put the bishop on e3 and threaten to play d5 followed immediately by d6 (which would be pretty devastating). On the other hand, it's less clear what White should do if we haven't put the Queen on b6 - if he goes for Be3 anyway, then we just put the Queen somewhere else (a5, maybe?) or play Ng4 to kick the bishop away first. If he goes for Bd2, well then he we can put the Queen on b6 and if he wants to oppose us by repositioning on e3 later then he's wasted a tempo.

So yeah, my recommendation is for h6.


ST

[Sir Thursday]

Tapper, on 04 September 2011 - 07:30 PM, said:

Every game, I feel the forum has a major disadvantage in that we under develop. A few players bring out pieces, others use those for bold moves, and then we're forced to retreat. Mafia has distinctly cut into my interest and time to play Forum Chess, hence my relatively low amount of postage in this game and the past one. I strongly advise against castling king side, and if we want to develop a queen side castling, we need to free both our queen and Bc8 from its current position, preferably by opening the c8-h3 diagonal. d5 would be the bold move (one that incidentally opens up our entire centre), d4 is less spectacular but has a major disadvantage in that it reduces Be7 to a completely defensive piece.

Qd8-d7 might be a good move to set up castling as well as protect our rather undeveloped centre. I'm all OK with playing a flanking game but we definately can't surrender the middle part of the board without a fight.

Presumably you meant Qd8-c7? It does seem like a natural square for the Queen...my one problem with it is that it seemss a bit passive. It feels like its only purpose is to protect e5, and we're already doing that with the Knight on g6. It's possibly a bit safer than b6 though, because White may be considering playing c5 forcing us to move the Queen again (having said that, I'd quite like White to play c5 because it makes the pawn on d4 a weak point).

ST

[Adjutant Stormy~]

FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

[Sir Thursday]

Does anyone have any comments on my analysis, or shall I go ahead and play h6?


ST

[Mentalist]

h6 seems sound. it's our best bet at getting some initiative back.

[Sir Thursday]

I feel like this is turning into a bit of a Ment and ST show. It would be good to get some input from others. Please don't be intimidated by our analysis etc. - the more ideas people come up with, the more likely we are to find the good ones .

Anyway, I'll go ahead and play h6.


ST

[Use Of Weapons]

h6, attacking my poor bishop, who never did nothing wrong, no sirree!

Well, the bishop beats a hasty retreat, but, like bishops everywhere, eyes up the cute behind of a pawn, and slips up behind the one on e4. Be3

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Edited to correct game progression

This post has been edited by UseOfWeapons: 06 September 2011 - 01:35 PM

[Mentalist]

We need to continue our development.

what does the collective think of b6?

[Tapper]

Mentalist, on 06 September 2011 - 02:10 PM, said:

We need to continue our development.

what does the collective think of b6?

I;d prefer d6 as it develops in a very simple maneuver the possibility to attack his king side should he castle that way.