Today’s game is an online turn-based game in round 3 of the tournament. Black allows me to establish my ideal Bird setup. The early middlegame is dominated by maneuvering for position. I make a pair of poor moves, permitting my opponent to establish a Rook battery on the a-file. I was able to trade off one of the Rooks when Black got the ‘pigs on the 7th’, so my position was defensible.
Black went for a mating attack, but this left his King vulnerable. I was lucky to see the opportunity to attack as I almost defended instead.
My reviewing goal is to identify my mistakes and determine the steps that are necessary to take to minimize or eliminate those mistakes. I also try to highlight those rare good moves so that my readers can see the progress in my studies. Thus, the notes emphasize my good and bad moves and gloss over those of my opponents. The variations are Houdini’s (1.5 32-bit), diagnosed with ‘Scid vs PC’ at 15 seconds per ply and a 0.6 error threshold. Most move evaluations are also Houdini’s, but any ‘!’ evaluations are mine. The verbal comments are my thoughts during the game and my interpretations of the analysis provided by Houdini.
Today’s endgame study: This endgame is both simple and complex. Initially it looks impossible to win.
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 "8/8/8/2p5/2Pp4/3K2Pk/7P/8 w - - 0 1"
Nice endgame study, that's a valuable position and technique to know.
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