Attacking early with a Rook and Recovering from a Blunder

The game that I’m going to be looking at in this post is one that I really like for at least three reasons. Firstly it is one where I play and win using my favourite London system. Secondly, it is quite an unusual game in that I manage to get my rook forward to my opponent’s third rank very early on, and keep it there throughout, which in the end proves to be a pivotal factor in my victory. Thirdly, and perhaps most signifigantly however, I seem to become so carried away with how well I am doing and the prospect of victory, that I make a really stupid blunder that allows my opponent to completely turn the tables on me and begin to dominate the game with a relentless attack upon my king, but then just when all seems to be lost I manage to sieze back the initiative once again, and go on to secure victory.

For my first three moves I am setting up my pieces in the classic London system shape, until black’s move three of pawn to g5 means that I need to retreat my bishop, and then follow this with pawn to h3 for move five, in order to allow an escape for the bishop in case there are any more advances against him by the black pawns. The game then continues as far as move eight, at which point I think my opponent makes quite a bad mistake of moving his pawn again to g4. I am able to take advantage of this by taking his pawn with my h file pawn, which in turn opens up the h file for my rook. Black then follows this with another error by moving his knight from g8 which enables me to take the bishop on his third rank with my rook on move eleven.

Having gotten my rook into this forward position, I then manage to keep it on black’s third rank, from where it poses a contant threat for the rest of the game.  On his thirteenth move black attempts to move his king out of danger by castling queenside, but I answer this immediatly by launching an attack on this side of the board with my queen moving to a4. My moves fifteen and sixteen are also good as I move my knight up the board to enable it to join the attack, but there is always a danger of getting carried away when one seems to be winning at chess, and when I move my queen to b4 on move eighteen, thinking I am a move away from check mating my opponent, I fail to spot his knight which I am then forced to exchange for my queen.

This stupid blunder makes the game much more evenly balanced, and from moves twenty to twenty-four, both myself and my opponent are attempting to batter away at the defences around our respective kings, in order to try and gain the initiative and control the game. On move twenty-five it seems as though it is black who has won this battle as his queen and knight begin a relentless attack on my king, which continues for the next nine moves, during which time all I can do for the most part is to passively move my king out of check. This attack culminates on move thirty-five, with my opponent’s queen taking my rook, which leaves me six points down in material.

 All is not lost however as I still have four pieces (a knight, a rook and two bishops), left on the board, and whilst none of them is defending my king, they are all aligned against my opponent’s king, and the break in his onslaught as he eliminates my rook, enables me sieze the initiative with an attacking move, so that this time it is my opponent’s king that is in check. Now it is my turn to be relentless, and I allow my competitor no chance to come back again as his king is forced to move out of check for the next three moves, with the ‘knockout punch’ finally being landed by my knight on move thirty-nine.

In addition to the three reasons I gave for liking this game at the start of this post, I think I might also add that I thoroughly enjoyed playing it because of the way the control of the game and the initiative in attack switched first from me, then to my opponent and then back to myself again. As with all of the games I have written about so far on this blogsite, it was a correspondence based game with time allowed for each player to move, and so perhaps lacked some of the excitement than can be attained from a ‘live’ game against the clock. Even so, I found the way everything seemed to be balanced on a knife edge quite gripping and this type of all or nothing situation where one or other of the players seems certain to conclude without a lengthy war of attrition that goes on and on until the end game is reached is really quite exhilarating. Also, it seemed to me that there was a certain amount of poetry about my last few moves of the game, with all four of my remaining pieces involved in the final onslaught and moving out of one another’s line of fire to create discovered checks, and push the enemy king from pillar to post in one last all out surge for victory.   

The Fried Liver Attack

One of my big dilemmas as a chess player who wants to improve and win more games, is whether to go in for one of the aggressive openings where material is sacrificed in order to gain a positional advantage early on, or whether to stick to a slow and steady approach where no material is sacrificed and the aim is to very gradually gain the upper -hand. The aggressive approach is great if you want to win games quickly and stylishly, and are able to overwhelm your opponent in the early or middle stages of the game. The problem is that if you cannot press home your initial positional advantage, then the longer the game continues, the more chance your opponent has to hold on to or increase the lead in material you have given them, and as the game becomes simplified with less and less pieces on the board, the more significant a small material advantage becomes.

One of the aggressive openings that I have tried to use from time to time is the ‘Italian’ game, and a variation of it that I seems to me to be particularly ingenious is known as the ‘fried liver attack’. The sheer dastardliness of this attack comes from the fact that it involves placing you knight early on in the game, on your opponents f7 square (f2 if your opponent is playing white), which effectively forks his Queen and Rook in their starting positions meaning that the only way he can avoid losing material early on is by taking your knight with his king.  Once he has made this move he has lost the opportunity to castle, and his king is being drawn towards the centre of the board. From there the general idea is that having forced the enemy king into the open you then throw everything you can muster at him in order to keep him off balance and force home your positional advantage. The problem for you however, is that you have exchanged your knight for a mere pawn, leaving you with a two point deficit to begin the game, so unless you are able to follow through and force a check mate there is a strong chance you will lose the game.

In the game that is illustrated below, I attempted the Italian opening and the fried liver attack, but was totally unable to make my positional advantage pay off, and by the end of the game it was my opponent who had turned the tables on me and was conducting a ruthless attack on my king from which I was only able to escape by desperately clinging on and playing defensively for a draw.

It started off ok with me making the classic opening moves of the Italian game, with my bishop bearing down on black’s f7 square, and my knight accomplishing the fried liver attack on move five. Black takes my knight with his king, and I follow through by moving my queen to f3 putting black in cheque once again; so far so good.

After black has blocked with his queen however, I decide to make the exchange, and black is then able to take my queen with his knight, which also places it in a good defensive position in front of his king. Already my attack seems to have faded, as I now have only a pawn and a bishop which have moved from their original squares. Undeterred however I use the next three moves to bring out another pawn,  put my own king into what seems to be a safe position by castling, and develop my dark squared bishop. It seems to me at this stage that I am beginning to develop a build up of pressue on black’s king via the defending knight on f6, but black’s move 10 is interesting in that he begins a counter attack by bringing his other knight forward to D4.

He attacks with this piece again on move eleven, taking my pawn on C2, and forcing me to move my rook on A1 to avoid losing it. I now have the general idea to attack the centre with my pawns which are backed up by my rooks, but seem unable to maintain any control in the centre with my bishop and knight, and am forced to exchange them, which again favours my opponent as he is now three points up in material. From move seventeen to move twenty, the only way I can see to continue the attack on black’s king is by moving the pawns which should be protecting my king forward into the fray, but this costs me when black is able to exploit the gap that this has created in my defence on his move twenty and put me in cheque with his bishop. I respond by moving my king out towards the pawn defence that moved forward and deserted him, black continues to attack me with his queenside pawns and by move twenty three, there is another exchange of material as I give up the second of my bishops. Although I capture another pawn on move twenty–four, we are now heading towards the end game, and the extra bishop which my opponet has left on the board should now give him a clear advantage as the game begins to simplify.

There now follows a series of moves and manouvres to try and gain the upper hand with neither the white or the black king seeming particularly well defended. Whilst I am able to put my opponents king into check again on move thirty, he is able to move easily away from my rook, and so I shift my strategy for salvaging the game at this point to attempt the promotion of my B file pawn which is protected by my rooks on B1 and A7 squares. Whilst I concentrate on pushing my pawn up the board as far as B7 however my opponent has skillfully manouvred his two rooks and bishop into positions where they are able to freely attack my undefended king.  On move thirty–eight my pawn does indeed become a queen which at last gives me a clear advantage in material, but with the stranglehold that the three black pieces now have on my king at the other end of the board, it looks as though this has come too late to save the game. Indeed, it is only thanks to the fact that I move my king around on the same four squares F1, F2, G1 and G2 that the host site declares a draw and I gain my lucky escape.

I think the important thing in chess, whether you are a strong or a week player, is to try and learn from your mistakes and the games you play and to develp your own style and methodology as you progress. One impression that I certainly gained from this game is that whilst an agressive opening gambit can often seem to give you a good positional advantage, unless you are able to press this home fairly decisively by the middle game, things can begin to get harder and harder for you as the game continues. I must also admit that I have attempted this opening in other games, and seem to have suffered one or two humiliating defeats against players that were ranked quite a bit lower than myself and against whom I might really be expected to be able to win. For the moment then I must say that I am trying to stick as much as possible to the slow and steady openings such as the London system or the Stonewall attack, but on the other hand that does not mean I will not keep experimenting and trying and re-trying new things again in the future.

Attacking a Castled Position

The next game that I have chosen to look at took place in June 2012. It is similar to my previous article about the fishing pole trap in that it was a very short game, and in that I was able once again to successfully attack and check mate my opponent after he had decided to castle. This time I was playing with the black pieces and my opponent was playing white, and to be honest, I think I only won so quickly because he made one or two blunders. Also on this occasion, there was no particular opening strategy or trap being employed, but I think I managed to concentrate a little bit more than my opponent and to capitalize on his mistakes.

White opens by moving his king pawn forward two squares, (pawn to e5), which is the most common opening move played, and I counter with the equally common pawn to e6. White then brings out his bishop to c4, which looks a little bit to me like the ‘Italien game’, (another opening that I hope to discuss at a later date), and which opens up a line of attack onto my weakest square which is f7.

Depending upon how much chess theory you know, you may or may not realise that in the opening part or any game of chess,  f7 is the weakest square for black and likewise f2 is the weakest square for white which is due to the fact that only the king can defend this square. This can cause big problems if the king is attacked from this square as in order to defend he must sometimes take the attacking piece himself, meaning that the option to castle is lost and meaning also that the king is being drawn away from the safety of the back rank early on in the game. In any case a variety of problems can be caused in various ways by a player who decides to attack this square, and so with this in mind I decided to move my queen out early (something they say you shouldn’t do), both to place another defender onto the f2 square, but also to give myself a little bit of a counter attacking option with my queen onto black’s king side.

Move three sees white bring out  his knight to f3, a general developing move which strengthens his position in the centre of the board, whilst my move three brings out my bishop to c5, which opens up a diagonal attack on white’s f2 square in the same way that he is attacking my f7. For move four, white brings his other knight into play, and my move four sees me breaking another of the opening guide lines by placing my knight on the edge of the board (knight on the rim spells dim), is the maxim. My reason for making this move however is because I want to build up an attack on the white kingside, and possibly combine my bishop and knight on his f2 square with the possibility of making a “fried liver attack”, (part of the Italien game, but more about this on another occassion), and I have already placed my queen on the square my knight would normally move on to.

Move five sees white move his queen side knight again, this time to d5 which is not a bad move really because it estabilshes an attacking outpost for him and forces me to move my Queen which is placed under threat. Rather than retreat completely, I  move my queen across the board to d6, but at this stage I would say white still seems to be in quite a strong position as he develops his pieces in the centre and attacks with his forward thrusting knight. For move six he decides to castle however, and I take advantage of this passive defensive move by continuing to bring my knight forward, this time to the g4 square from where it poses a direct and obvious threat to white’s castled position by threatening squares f2 and h2.

I think the next move is where white really begins to go wrong.  He moves his pawn to d4, which is maybe an attempt to block the line of my bishop onto his f2 square, but by taking his d pawn with my e pawn, I succeed in unblocking the diagonal line of attack by my queen onto white’s h2 square which is also under threat from my knight. At this stage, the situation is still not terminal for him however, because h2 is still defended by his knight on f3, meaning that I could not attack the square without forefeithting my knight and queen. For some reason however, white’s attention seem to be focussed on what is happening at the centre of the board and maybe with the threat to f2, and he makes his last fatal error by moving his f3 knight to take my pawn. It only remains for me to strike the killer blow and the game is over.

Presumably, white was imagining that the game would continue with my bishop taking his knight, which would then enable him to take with his queen, and in so doing, bring it to the centre of play where it would be able to excert a lot of control over the game. He seemed to be totally unaware however of the threat posed by my knight and queen and the need to defend his castled position.  From my point of view however, this game serves to illustrate, how useful knights can sometimes be when used as attacking pieces to harry the enemy lines, and how bringing the queen into play early on in the game to add some extra thrust to the attack need not necessarily be a mistake.
             

The Fishing-Pole Trap.

I’ve  been interested by the Fishing Pole Trap ever since someone caught me out with it and then had the decency to direct me to an instruction video on U tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uw8hKEiG_IE&feature=watch_response). I think the trap is generally meant to be used in conjundtion with the Ruy Lopez opening, but in the game we are going  to be looking at I seem to have managed to incorportate it into the London game.

The London opening is one I am using quite a lot at the moment. I find it a really good system chiefly because it enables a player to make a nice steady start to a game without sacrificing any material in order to try and gain a positional advantage. There are other reasons why I like the London opening as well, but I think I might save these for another post, but for anyone interested in knowing a bit more about it here is another link to U tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtBMFWuwv1E

This particular game is one that I played in May of 2012 and I was playing with the white pieces. I opened by moving my queen pawn two squares forwards which is the standard opening move for the London game. Black responded with the symetrical pawn to d5 which is the most logical move that most players would probably make in this situation. Move two I played knight to f3 and black responded symetrically again with knight to f6. For move three I bought out my dark squared bishop to  b4, this move being a key feature of the London opening, because in many games of chess it is the light squared bishop which is developed first with the dark square bishop remaining on its starting square throughout the game.

Black’s third move pawn to e6 served the function of backing up his pawn on d5, and I then followed with pawn to c3 to back up my d4 pawn. Black plays bishop to e7, and I then bring out my pawn to e3, which completes a sort of defensive pyramid around my king which is another feature of the London game that I like.

At this point my opponent’s fifth move now marks a turning point in the game. He castles to the king side, and whilst I don’t think there is anything wrong with this and it is not an error in itself, it is this particular move that makes it possible  to use this fishing pole trap, which can only happen after the opponent has castled.  I perhaps didn’t realize straight away that this opportunity for a quick victory had presented itself because I continued with the move bishop to d3, which nevertheless is a good position for my light squared bishop as it allows it to control two long diagonal lines from within the pawn triangle and immediately begins to attack the h7 square adjacent  to the black king.  Black then continues his development with knight to c6, but by this point I have realised my opportunity exists  and the  sequence of moves that follows involve nothing more than the setting up and utilisation of my fishing pole.

I play knight to g5. By doing this it looks to my opponent that my knight is a bit of a threat to his castled defence, which it is, but what I think he doesn’t realise is that from my point of view this piece is merely the bait on the end of my line. Black perceives that the easiest way to make this knight move is going to be by moving his pawn to h6. After he plays this move, I respond with pawn to h4 (the rod from which the bait is dangling), making it look as though I am using this move to back up my knight. Black then sees this as an opportunity to take my knight with his pawn and so gain in material, which he does for his move eight. What he doesn’t realise however is that he has now swallowed the bait ‘hook, line and sinker’, and from this point on a victory for the chess advernturer is inevitable.

My move nine, pawn takes pawn, gives me an open file from my rook to black’s king and also forces black to move his knight on f6, which is the only piece he has left which prevents his defeat. Move nine for black therefore is knight to h7 which I follow with my penultimate move ten, queen to h5. My opponent can do nothing now to prevent check mate and his move ten (pawn to g6) seems more like an empty gesture of defiance than anything else. Move eleven, Queen takes knight on h7 and the game is over.

Victory in chess is always sweet, but especially so when one is able to utilize an idea or sequence of moves that one has learnt and achieve a rapid win in this manner. I must admit, that I wasn’t as benevolant as the person who first used the trap against me and didn’t e mail my adversary afterwards to clue him up on his defeat. Many might say also that only a very inexperienced player would fall into such a trap anyway and I suppose there is a certain amount of truth in that; my opponent’s ELO rating at the time of this game was only 1268, whilst mine was a mere 1197. I think perhaps some of my reluctance to point out my opponent’s error to him after the game may lie in the fact that my version of it is not strictly in accordance with the version illustrated on the U – tube video that fits in with the Ruy Lopez opening, but in any case, I hope I may perhaps have made ammends for my underhand ways by making the game public on this blog post.