Local superiority of Pieces.

I played this game today and afterwards wondered. What did ICS tell me mthat would help in this game?. In month 1 local superiority of pieces is mentioned. To me in this game this translated as "Fire as many pieces towards the opponents king as possible". I am not sure how else ICS would help on this game. Thoughts are appreciated. Also No jokes because I missed an easy mate in 3!!.

Two Other questions.
1 Has anyone found a quick way to delete times before publishing PGN files
2 How do you set up variations so that the user can follow them on the board too?
Many thanks.
H

Maybe I am just lonely when I am replying to my own post. I now realise when I play through this that a lot of the King safety comments in Month 2 ( or really how to attack the King were employed in this game). Not sure how much I used ICS material and how much was natural. Or maybe that is the point. Once I have learned it it becomes natural.

For removing time one can load the pgn in a .txt file and manually remove the time.

For adding variations one can load the pgn in a little program like chesspad or even Fritz, Rybka, .... and then add variation. Or you can add this manually in txt file, i believe one must put the {} but i am not sure.

Nicely played game but beside superiority of forced i guess black forces were tied up most of the game which made it even harder for black to defend.

Greatly appreciated

hoopy wrote:Maybe I am just lonely when I am replying to my own post. I now realise when I play through this that a lot of the King safety comments in Month 2 ( or really how to attack the King were employed in this game). Not sure how much I used ICS material and how much was natural. Or maybe that is the point. Once I have learned it it becomes natural.

If it has been absorbed to the point where it is seamlessly integrated into your thinking without being overtly aware, then you have made the transition from knowing to skill. Well done!

BobbyBlunder wrote:

hoopy wrote:Maybe I am just lonely when I am replying to my own post. I now realise when I play through this that a lot of the King safety comments in Month 2 ( or really how to attack the King were employed in this game). Not sure how much I used ICS material and how much was natural. Or maybe that is the point. Once I have learned it it becomes natural.

If it has been absorbed to the point where it is seamlessly integrated into your thinking without being overtly aware, then you have made the transition from knowing to skill. Well done!

Thankyou BB.

That is what I am hoping.
The difficulty is how do you tell!!

I think the Chessbase program has a command to delete times. I'm not at home so I can't check that right now. It has a command to delete Fritz evaluations, so maybe it also deletes times.

Out of interest Hoopy, what about 11 a4? The idea is that Black needs to activate the Bc8. While 11 e5 has purpose it does concede some squares before the rest of the forces have been deployed. Black has no access to the center if the pawn stays on e4. So the suggestion is 11 a4 b6 12 Rb1 Bb7 13 Qd3 targeting a6 and especially b6 which cannot be defended. If Black plays f5 then you play e5.
It seem that Black is tied up and moves such as Qe3 and d oubling Rooks on the b file are possible. Meanwhile Black can do nothing. This way White controls the entire board.

So Black may decide to defend b6 with the Ne7. Ok 13 ... f5 14 e5 Rf7 15 Rfd1 Nc8 16 Ba3 and then white could think about a K-side attack

hoopy wrote:Two Other questions.
1 Has anyone found a quick way to delete times before publishing PGN files
2 How do you set up variations so that the user can follow them on the board too?

You can do that with any chess DB software i think, but since PGN is text, it is very easy to edit manually.
Just open the file in you prefered editor (wordpad if you don't have one) and delete the PGN tags between [ ] that you don't want to appear.

Comments are put into { }
And variations into ( )
If you want to put comments into a variation, then it is (15.Ne3 Bg6 {comment ....}) inside the parenthesis, not the inverse.

About your game :

I like the Bd6 idea and the way you trapped at least one black rook, and then not less than 4 pieces ! 2 rooks and 2 knights that are trapped on the back rank, without any chance of activation.

Very well done !

Another example of throwing pieces against the castle.

I played this game today, quietly and i think i have improved my play since the beginning of the course.
ELO are not written, i was 1700 white in this game, against 1870 black, it is a 15 min game, Closed Sicilian.

I have a special feeling for this opening, since it is very easy to remind, and has the advantage to work almost whatever black is doing.

Interesting game. I would suggest a4 is a waste of time. The Nb5 idea should not be on the TO DO list. Unless one has good reason, only play on the area of the board where one has a superiority. 16 ... d4? is a huge mistake after which it is hard to find a constuctive plan for Black. From then this is a one horse race. Well played.

I agrees for d4, i was expecting dxc4, but for some reason, i felt my opponent would play d4.

For Nb5, well, story prooves it was waste of time, but i focused on Na3 -> Nb5 -> Nd6 and clearly Nd6 is a good outpost.
And if black takes my knight, i take back with a4 pawn and it becomes a b5 passed pawn.

I admit, i should concentrate on the promising side only, but i know also that with better black play it can be difficult to conclude on the kingside, and closing the b file worth considering for my own king safety.

Good ambition I agree, but the problem is neither of the Nb5 to d6 or closing the 'b' file ideas can be acomplished without generous help from Black. Pipedream stuff in my view.

With regard to the queenside, standard plan in the Closed Sicilian is not to exhange the queen's rook but to put it on c1 to slow down Black's Q-side play while White expands on the K-side.

Neverthess less the thinking process of making the Nc3 a strong piece is to be applauded. That sort of approach is going to yield great results for you I am sure.

Sorry to spam a little the topic

Another game with the same oppening but stronger opponent, same principles apply, closed center so possibility to throw pieces against the castled king.

I almost beat an opponent 450 elo above me (till move 27. it is a clear win for white, but i blundered).

I do show these 2 games, because it is in direct link with the ICS course. I played this oppening a lot in the past with variable result, but i learned in ICS, that there is a time to attack when center is closed and you have local superiority. In these 2 examples, i was not frightenned to advance my king pawns and let them participate to the attack. In the past i was coward and let these pawns static, but the course made me understand that the danger is bigger for my opponent than for me in situations where some pre-requisite are met.

I hope you enjoy these examples.
It is the last i promise (until the next one...).

Very nice game. Unlucky. An interesting move is 25 Kh1 another is 17 h4 sealing the King in. The course is working for you. Good stuff.

THanks for posting. One thing the King Safety (i.e., King attack) material is teaching me in month two is that it isn't necessarily the need to close up the center, but to just make damn sure the opponent doesn't have any counterplay in the center (that is, I could have complete control over the center even if it is not closed, and it is still OK to consider the attack on the Kingside). My coach pointed this out in one of my games, said I wasted a move to close up the center before attacking, when my opponent had no possible counterplay in the center anyway!

Then I noticed the ICS material said not to close the center before the attack necessarily, but just to make sure I have control over the center, or that the opponent has no counterplay. ONe way to kill counterplay is to close the center, of course.

I am almost ready for the King Attack problem set, I'm about to finish the second theory and have worked through the annotated games.

You've got a coach now as well BDK! You are taking this game seriously mate.

Do you find having a real coach a big help? I've been considering paying for a coach just to analyse my games. I think real human annotations and advice would help me a lot, especially with subtle positional moves and proper technique.

Oh by the way, I REALLY recommend the Yusupov workbook.

I've only done the first two chapters so far but I have so many more mating ideas now and it will really help you to finish off opponents in style once you have built up a winning attack.

I'm going to go over them again tomorrow before moving on to Chapter 3.

Regarding ICS I'm just working through Month 1 again, I want to make sure the thinking process is intuitive to me before I move on the Month 2.