Old Indian Defense, similar to the Philidor

Today’s blog entry is from an online tournament game. It showcases my new defense against d4 openings. Black’s normal first moves are identical to the Philidor Defense, with obvious benefits.

The SWOT thinking pattern is a big time saver. By examining what has changed with the opponent’s move, I no longer need to spend large periods of time looking for possible tactical opportunities. If it wasn’t there before the move, it won’t be there after the move unless there was a change. 

White makes an early well-known blunder, losing a piece. Then he goes Pawn grabbing while his King is still in the center. An early checkmate ends the game.

The variations and move symbols are Houdini’s (1.5 w32), diagnosed with ‘Scid vs PC’ at 10 seconds per ply. The verbal comments are my thoughts during the game and my interpretations of the analysis provided by Houdini. The score chart is at the bottom of this entry.

I have been playing with a new tool called “Guess the Move” and is a free download. It is used to replay Master games, prompting the user to guess which move is better, keeping a running score of how well you guess. I find that using it is an improvement over just replaying the Master game, trying to absorb the patterns. It can be found at:

 https://sites.google.com/site/fredm/

 There is also a youtube demo available and online documentation.