Working with Games

It's not all that clear how we should be working through the 100+ games covering the various centre formations, so I thought I might show what I'm doing and let others critique and/or share their approach.

The following game had no notes. What I do is spend about 10-15 minutes with each game and make general notes of the sort here, then aftwards I use Rybka (human) to provide a quick evaluation of the positons where my notes are and then scroll through the game and look for any other turning points I may have missed. Having been through about half the games now I'm begining to see some improvement in the correlations between my observations and what Rybka says, I guess that's progress....

[Event "'c' and 'e' files open"]
[Site ""]
[Date "1985"]
[Round ""]
[White "Portisch Lajos"]
[Black "Nikolic Predrag"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "E12"]
[Annotator ""]
[Source ""]

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3 d5 5.cxd5 exd5 6.Nc3 Be7 7.Bf4
O-O 8.e3 c5 9.Ne5 Bb7 10.Bd3 Nc6 11.O-O cxd4 12.Nxc6 Bxc6 13.exd4
{ Now, with two completely open files in the extended centre, by definition we have an "open" centre.}
Bd6 14.Bg5 h6 15.Bh4 Re8 16.Bc2 Be7 17.Re1 Ne4 18.Bxe7 { White exchanges the dark square Bishops which is advantageous to White because of the d-pawns.}
Rxe7 19.Qe2 Rd7 20.Qd3 { Control of the centre is shared. White has a slight edge because of the better Bishop.} {%08DA}
g6 21.Bb3 Kg7 22.Rac1 Rc8 23.f3 Nd6 24.Qe3 Nc4 25.Bxc4 dxc4 { The position is now equal.}
26.Rcd1 Qg5 27.Qxg5 hxg5 28.d5 Bb7 29.Re5 { White commences to exploit his control of the e-file.}
Rc5 30.Rxg5 f5 31.h4 Kf6 32.d6 Re5 33.Kf2 Re6 34.Ne2 Rdxd6 35.Nf4
Rxd1 36.Rxg6+ Kf7 37.Rxe6 Rd4 38.Rh6 Rxf4 39.Kg3 Rd4 40.Rh7+
Kg6 41.Rxb7 { White's edge is due to the more active positon of his Rook.}
Rd2 42.Rxa7 Rxb2 43.Rc7 b5 44.Rc6+ Kg7 45.Rc5 Kg6 46.Rc6+ Kg7
47.Rc5 Kg6 48.h5+ Kxh5 49.Rxf5+ Kg6 50.Rc5 Kf6 51.a4 bxa4 52.Rxc4
a3 53.Ra4 Ra2 { From this point forward Black's Rook is tied down to the defense of the a-pawn.}
54.Ra5 Kg6 55.f4 Kf6 56.Ra6+ Ke7 57.Kf3 Kf7 58.g4 Ke7 59.g5 1-0

That's probably fine. I would just concentrate on the brief intro's to each and the outline of plans for both sides. Then just skim through them so you can identify different types of centre.

I think all that can be expected of you in Month 2 is that you are now a bit aware of the type of centres you have in your own games. I wouldn't bother trying to plough through all those games, just keep them for reference and start trying to pay more attention to the type of central position that arises in your own games.

Then when you have an interesting game, you can use this material for reference, maybe load up the database to look for similar games to what you just played and some possible ideas and plans for future games.

It's certainly not meant to be material you are supposed to digest in one go before you move on to month 3. It's rather an invaluable resource of games that you can reference and add to over time, maybe with your own games.

Don't get bogged down with material. That's like getting an endgame book that has all the mates in chapter 1 and spending days trying to learn how to mate with knight and bishop before moving onto chapter 2, basic King and pawn endgames!

Bilbo wrote:That's probably fine. I would just concentrate on the brief intro's to each and the outline of plans for both sides. Then just skim through them so you can identify different types of centre.

This is exactly what I did.

Bilbo wrote:
Don't get bogged down with material. That's like getting an endgame book that has all the mates in chapter 1 and spending days trying to learn how to mate with knight and bishop before moving onto chapter 2, basic King and pawn endgames!

Good point! Goal number one is to get through all of the topics in one month. At the rate I'm progressing though month 2 that will take roughly 100 hours which about the max I can devote to the task.

I get though the games quickly the first time and a few month later i review them again in order to try to identify when was the critical moment and setup for different kind of centers.

I mean, with open center you primarily focus on advance in developpement and speed play, while in semi-closed center you spend lot of tempos in placing your pieces before breaking the center by a pawn push, and in completely closed center you have to worry very soon in the opening not to have "out of play pieces" because they are stuck behind a pawn wall.

First time i went through the games i did not pay attention to these details, but it is important.

Nice description, HangingKing!