“Errare humanum est…”
Seneca
Last week we went over a bad sequence for White in one of our friendly voting games. You can read it again here. We stopped at our king move below:
It was our turn to have a bad idea. After reviewing the discussions we had, I noticed we covered extensively just two moves 33… Bxf5 and 33… Re6. It is no surprise we picked the king move. Unfortunately that is not good either. Instead we should have kept our composure, and continue our plan on the queen side. See how White could have saved the game, as well as how we should have played:
We did not realise at the time how important the moment was. Our main idea was to hold on, exchange pieces if possible, and hopefully reach a won endgame. The following moves sequence shows it clearly:
In the last part of the game White was stretched think between the attack on the king side, and being forced to stop our a-passer. This is the part where our defence proved to be more than adequate to withstand White’s attack. We should have never picked 33… Kh7 It just gave them a chance at holding the game, followed by a delay in winning the game. Playing at faster time controls has become the norm lately. That is a good reason to focus on finishing the game as soon as possible when given the opportunity.
Last but not the least please have one more look at both articles as a whole. They are a good example of how a post-mortem analysis should be made. The more often you do it for your games (OTB, online, turn based, rapid, etc.), the faster you will see a steady improvement in your play. I normally spend minimum one hour preparing these articles, and here I count just the real time to put it together after I have decided what to do. It is time well spent for your development if you decide to follow my advice. There is no doubt about it.
Eugen Demian
