Game Analysis: Potomac Open, Round 3

Hello everyone. We are going to continue going through the games played during my summer trip in Mid-July. We are up to the third round of the Potomac Open, where both my opponent and myself have a perfect score of 2 and 0. The main theme behind this game is learning from your mistakes instead of your brilliancies. We will see poor opening play by Black followed by a totally incorrect strategy by White, followed by a hasty attack by White, leading to an advantage for Black. He never relinquishes the advantage, but both sides do miss a tactical blunder by White which should have ended the game on the spot. Needless to say, a few moves later, White is completely lost anyway, and this game should likely have been a good 10 moves shorter, but severe time pressure and inertia is the only reason White kept on going, and if not for a two piece advantage and mate coming up leading to a resignation by White on move 40, White would likely have resigned anyway on move 41 when the clocks were reset with 30 extra minutes for each player.


Potomac Open, Round 3
W: Patrick McCartney (2050)
B: Tejas Ramas (2032)
Queen's Indian Defense

1.Nf3 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.g3 b6 4.Bg2 Bb7 5.O-O d5

This move is not very good for Black, and leads to a hybrid of the Queen's Indian and the Catalan. Much stronger for Black are 5...Be7 or 5...Bb4+, both leading to a fairly balanced game. The problem here, compared to say, the normal Catalan, is that in the normal Catalan, Black will usually either keep the Bishop on the c8-h3 diagonal, which makes trading on d5 not look so hot for White as it opens up the Bishop for Black when he recaptures with the e-pawn. If he can't trade on d5, then it makes developing the Knight to its most active square of c3 hard to do because often times it blocks a Rook or Queen from guarding c4, and so instead White often has to develop the Knight more passively to d2. On the flip side, Black can do an early capture on c4, after which he has the assurance that the diagonal will be open, and then developing the Bishop to b7 to oppose White's strong g2-Bishop is often the way to go. However, in this case, it is White that will get the best of both worlds. Because Black has already committed to moving his Bishop to b7, a trade on d5 is now encouraged, leading to a Black pawn being on d5, and the Black Bishop having to move again to get back to the opened diagonal. Also, with White ridding himself of the c4-pawn, he can develop his Knight to c3 instead of d2.

So in summary, it is totally Black's choice whether he wants to open the position and only then put his Bishop on b7 (hence the "Open Catalan", or keep the position closed and staying on the original diagonal, making opening a discouraging move for White and instead then forcing White to cover c4 (hence the "Closed Catalan"), but Black gives White the best of both worlds by committing the Bishop before deciding what to do with the pawn structure, and White fixes the pawn structure to his liking based on the location of Black's Bishop, and gets to develop his Knight to the most natural and active square, c3.

6.d4 Nbd7 7.cxd5!

As described already, when Black moves his Bishop to b7 too early in the Catalan or commits to ...d5 too early in the Queen's Indian, this is a favorable trade for White.

7...exd5

Taking with either piece is worse. 7...Nxd5 allows 8.e4, giving White the big center, while 7...Bxd5 gives White 8.Nc3 with tempo as Black does not want to give up that Bishop for a Knight as then White's counterpart on g2 becomes way too strong for Black to handle.

8.Nc3 Be7 9.Bf4 c6 10.Qc2 O-O

11.Rac1

This looks like the most natural move for White. He develops his last undeveloped piece to the only semi-open file from White's perspective (Black has the semi-open e-file). It turns out though that this is completely the wrong idea for White. The hardest part of the game, often times, is what to do with the Rooks. Before you can truly figure out the right arrangement for the Rooks, you have to define your plan, and having the wrong plan, as is the case in this game, can often lead to disaster, as it does in this game for White.

First let's assess the position. White has a slight lead in development as he has one undeveloped piece to Black's two with it being his move, and his Rooks are connected while Black's are not. It is a given that we are going to develop the Rooks now, and so let's look beyond the Rook development and ask ourselves a few questions. First, once the Rooks are developed, what will be White's worst-placed piece? Given Black's pawn structure with pawns on d5 and c6, we see a similar problem to what Black often has to deal with in the Italian Game, where a White pawn is on c3, and Black's c6-Knight has no productive square to go to. We have a similar scenario here where the c6-pawn blunts all active use of a Knight on c3, and so it is the Knight on c3 that will be White's worst-placed piece. Second, what advantages does White have? He has an advantage in space, and a lead in development. These two things combined call for immediate activity by White, and the opening up of the position. If Black could keep the position bottled up until he catches up in development, he would be perfectly fine and have at minimum an equal game. The main way for White to open up the position and at the same time improve his worst-placed piece of the Knight on c3 is to advance the e-pawn to e4. Notice, however, that because Black can ill afford to allow e4-e5 by White, he will have to take the pawn on e4, and White will be left with an Isolated Queen Pawn, a common theme in numerous Queen Pawn openings, and the Queen's Indian and Catalan are no exceptions, especially the latter. In return for the IQP, White gets free piece play with a space advantage, and if White can either eliminate the weakness with a timely d5-advance, or in some cases, turn the weakness into an asset in the form of a far advanced d-pawn should it become a passer, like maybe if Black ever plays ...c5 and White answers with pushing the d-pawn, then White can often reach an almost decisive position.

So once we answer those two critical questions, and we realize that White wants to play e4 and accept the IQP position, we should have the answer now of what we need to do. We need to place a Rook on d1, backing up the IQP and trying to get in that d5-push. Ok now, which Rook? Well, despite the semi-open c-file, there is nothing there for White. The c6-pawn is well protected. White will not dominate the c-file even if Black does open it with a c5-advance as Black will have a Rook by then on c8 and White's battery sees the Queen in the front, and so she will have to move anyway. So there is no encouraging reason to put a Rook on c1. It is the Queenside Rook that wants to go to d1, with the other Rook likely going to e1 at some point, back up the e4-advance, and so in this scenario, White wants his rooks on d1 and e1, not c1 and d1 or c1 and e1. Therefore, the right move here was 11.Rad1! with ideas of getting in e4 in the near future. Depending on Black's response, potential follow-ups include Rfe1, Ne5, or in a few rare cases, potentially even the immediate e4. Don't try to go down these rabbit trails, over-analyzing the position before knowing what Black will do in response. The key thing here is to correctly figure out where the Rooks need to go, and we did that. In this position, they belong on d1 and e1. Move your Rook from a1 to d1, and leave it at that, and the subsequent moves can be figured out once we see what Black does. The main plan is to get in e2-e4 at the right time.

11...Rc8 12.Qf5

Heading in the wrong direction, going for a hasty Kingside attack. Better here is to follow the positional ideas in the position. Natural moves like 12.Rfd1 or 12.Bh3, taking advantage of the pin on the open diagonal and Black's misplaced Bishop on b7, were both better moves than the move played in the game.

12...Re8 13.h4 g6

White's 12th move would be correct if the enticement of this move created a major weakness for Black, but Black has nothing to fret here. He still has his dark-squared Bishop, and White is not ready to bombard the Kingside and his pieces are not set up in any way, shape, or form to take advantage of Black's slight dark-square weaknesses around the King. Instead, White's Queen simply gets thrown back.

14.Qb1 a5

14...Bf8, intending to go to g7 with the Bishop, would be more consistent here and Black would be at least equal.

15.Ng5?

Once again, after Black's incorrect 14th move, White can maintain a slight advantage with either of the same two options he had on move 12. Either 15.Bh3, once again taking advantage of the pin, or 15.Rfd1, developing the other Rook. Instead, White plays another hasty move, and this is one too many by White. Black now grabs the advantage.

15...Nh5! 16.Bd2 Bf6

Significantly stronger is 16...Ndf6! 17.Rfe1 c5 18.e4 dxe4 19.Ncxe4 Nxe4 20.Bxe4 Bxe4 21.Nxe4 f5 22.Ng5 Qd5 23.Ne6 cxd4 24.Rxc8 Rxc8 25.Qd3 with an advantage for Black.

17.Bf3

This was White's opportunity to hold the balance with 17.Qd3 Bg7 18.e4. This version is far inferior to the plan for White back at move 11, and it achieves nothing more than equality after 18...c5!, but it is far superior to what happened in the game. Now we are going to see all of White's pieces awkwardly placed and Black taking full advantage of it!

17...Ng7 18.e4?

This gives up a pawn for no real reason. 18.Qd3 is still better, but Black is very much in the driver's seat no matter what White does here.

18...Bxd4 19.exd5 Ne5 20.Bg2 Ba6

Now with that real sore spot on d3, White's hasty attack has reared its ugly head. White is lost here!

21.dxc6

21...Bd3!

There are actually two good moves here. Also strong is 21...Nh5 22.Bf4 Bd3 23.Qa1 Bxf1 24.Rxf1 Bxc3 25.bxc3 Nxf4 26.gxf4 Nxc6 27.Ne4 f5 28.Ng5 h6 29.Nf3 Qd6 30.Qc1 Re2 31.Ne5 Nxe5 32.fxe5 Qd2 33.Qb1 Qb2 34.Bd5+ Kg7 35.Qxb2 Rxb2 with a winning position for Black. The main point here is not to merely take the Rook on f1. Notice though that both feature the same theme. Might as well make White's pieces worse before taking the material that is not going away anyway. A White Queen on a1 is even worse for White than a White Queen on b1.

22.Qa1 Bxf1

Now, of course, Black takes the material.

23.Rxf1 Nxc6 24.Nf3 Nf5 25.Nxd4 Ncxd4 26.Bg5 f6 27.Bf4 g5 28.hxg5 fxg5 29.Bd2

29...Qf6

Sure, Black is still winning here, but he misses a move that can put the game away on the spot. 29...Rxc3!! 30.Bxc3 Ne2+ 31.Kh2 Qd6 32.Qd1 Qh6+ 33.Bh3 g4 34.Qd5+ Re6 35.Qa8+ Kf7 36.Qb7+ Kg6 and White can resign.

30.Bd5+ Kh8 31.b3?? Rcd8

This time both players miss it. Black gets two pieces for a Rook with 31...Rxc3! 32.Bxc3 Ne2+ followed by 33...Nxc3. The fact that Black was already up the exchange puts him up a full piece here, and White can again resign safely. That said, White's position deteriorates quickly anyway, and the rest of the game was mainly played out because White was down to about a minute to make it to move 40, and was predominantly played out of inertia. Had the game made it that far, I'd probably have resigned on move 41 anyway.

32.Kg2 Rxd5 33.Nxd5 Qc6 34.Bxg5 Qxd5+ 35.Kg1 Kg8 36.Rd1 Qf3 37.Bf4 Ne2+ 38.Kh2 Qxf2+ 39.Kh3 Nxf4+ 0-1

It's mate in 4 for Black starting with 40.Kg4 Ne3+.

There are a number of ideas that can be picked up from this game:

• Move order matters in the opening, and mixing ideas between multiple openings is not usually a good idea and for good reason. In these Catalan type positions, Black wants to settle the pawn structure, whether he opts for open or closed is up to him, and only then determine what to do with his bad Bishop, not the other way around of setting up the Bishop, and then try to set up the pawn structure as White can take full advantage in the latter scenario like he did in the game.
• When the Rooks are connected, the way to set up the Rooks is often determined by what the other pieces and pawns need to do, and the pawn structure that results from that, rather than simply which file is open. We saw that here where White assumed placing the Rook on the semi-open file was right when instead he should have been playing for e4 and setting up the Rooks based on the result of that pawn break.
• Hasty attacks almost never work!
• As Black demonstrated here, chess is not all about grabbing material. Sure, that often times leads to an advantage, but milk that advantage to its greatest potential, like we saw here where Black dislocates the White Queen to an even worse place than it already was before grabbing the material.
• Always be on the lookout for tactical shots. Yes, Black won, but he had two chances to end the game a lot quicker with the temporary exchange sacrifice on c3.

That concludes this article. In the next week or two will be the fourth round of this tournament, which will be covered in the next edition of the French Connection, which will be the third of the trio of wins for Black in the French McCutcheon. Stay tuned for that! Till next time, good luck in your tournament games.