Thursday, April 2, 2009

Well, Once Again, Chess has Pissed me Off.

Or more accurately, I have pissed myself off. I played a game against a player somewhat stronger than me, and I had the chance to become significantly better early in the game. All it would have cost me was measly pawn. I saw the line, I liked it, but I didn't play it. Why? I hadn't looked at it before. It certainly looked better, but the position would have been very strange. So I didn't go in for it. Pathetic. I was soon worse, and lost shortly thereafter with little fanfare. This cannot happen again. I am usually less experienced than my opponents, and if I start forgoing lines because I haven't looked at them then I'm going to forgo a lot of good lines. I have to have more faith in my judgement. Here's the game:

Muro-Rampley.pgn


So as you can see, Paul did make an error (a difficult to see error, for what it's worth) on move 11. I just didn't have the balls to take advantage of it. In the words of the sage Charles Barkley, "Turruble. Just Turruble. Knucklehead."

5 comments:

chessx said...

Tough game but you are to hard on yourself.

You know the reasons,you need to as you say trust your judgement more.
It's hard to do that sometimes,i know i have suffered from this lack of faith at certain chess times.

I always tended to play to safe and then play aggressive to try to compensate for playing safe.

This is something you can't train it's in you as it was in me.

One year i had had enough of losing games i felt i should of won,due to not trusting myself.

So i had faith in what i saw and played what i saw,i had better results but not great results.

But i felt better in myself chesswise.

Unknown said...

What was the time control? If it was >G/30 I don't think there was much left for judgement after the pawn sac, you can pretty much calculate that out atleast to the point where you see where your play is coming from.

Confidence in your moves at the board is big. But you also need to remember you are not playing Rybka. If initiatiative can be gained by a pawn sac (especially as black), I feel that it is normally worth it. But I have a "reputation" too. :)

I'm at work, it's early and I have yet to consume caffeine, but the move I don't get is 13. ... Ng6. This seems to me like the real place where you lost your chance to take the initiative. Why not go ahead and play either Bd7 or a6 here?. In particular I like the Najdorfy plan of a6-b5-Nc4 here for black. Were you already kicking yourself for not playing h4 at this point? I guess I can understand having your mind set on solidifying the position.

I agree with ChessX that you are being too hard on yourself about not playing h4. In alot of ways not comitting there keeps the position more dynamic which suits your style more.

Unknown said...

The longer I look at the position. The more I like 13. ... Be6. Black can play Nc4 is one move and the Bishop covers f7 in the event of the f-file opening. You can play b5-b4, swing the other knight into c4 via e5, bring the bishop back to g7 and your pieces are just good. There are king safety issues... but you are playing a sicilian after all. a classical at that.

Caeruleum Canis said...

Well, Be6 is a good move at several points, as per the analysis. I played Ng6 to solidify the kingside while gaining a tempo against the queen due to the pin threat, but I never did end up castling there. I underestimated (read: didn't notice) the weakness of the h pawn as I was too focused on the weakness of the g pawn. Oh well.

Caeruleum Canis said...

It was g/85, 5 sec/move