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Thursday, January 17, 2013

Philidor Defense (10), slow and steady

Today’s game is a G45 game against a higher rated Chessmaster opponent. The opening is classified as a Pirc, but transposes into a Philidor. This is my preferred move order which practically forces the Hanham varation of the Philidor.

Chessmaster typically gives away an early lead but then sets traps throughout the game, both easy and difficult. The way to play this game is to take the advantage given and not make mistakes. I know that my opponent will capitalize on any lapse.

After trading off all Chessmaster’s pieces, I promote a Pawn and look for a quick checkmate without falling victim to a stalemate. Both the game graph and the analysis show that I played well throughout.

The variations and move symbols are Houdini’s (1.5 32-bit), diagnosed with ‘Scid vs PC’ at 20 seconds per ply and a 0.5 error threshold. 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.



This game shows the solidity of the Philidor Defense and how my opponent cannot capitalize on an early, unfounded attack.



Today's endgame study: Take the endgame FEN and paste it into your favorite engine and try to repeat the win.  My opponent was Houdini set at full strength.

FEN "8/1p6/7K/8/7P/8/5k2/8 w - - 0 1"

1 comment:

  1. Philidor defence is with e7-e5. The opening was a Pirc and no Philidor. 5..Nxf6 did not give black the initiative. Initiative would mean that black has threads of some type and can force white to react to black moves. After that move Black has won a tempo and is up in development but even that not realy because black has to make extra move to be able to castle. The Bf8 cant move at all.
    The idea to exchange material after leading in material is perfect but in my eyes 14... Bxb3 was an .error White has all his pieces out and black is grabbing pawns with a bishop and all other black pieces are still inflexible. At this moment black was playing with ~2 pieces and white with 4 pieces. The pawn at b3 is of almost no value its a double pawn. If you lead in material you have to focus on king safety and giving the opponent no chances to create complications. So the problem with the inactive pieces where most! important

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