Who needs material?

Submitted by Phobetor on Fri, 09/18/2009 at 2:29pm.

For a long time I was a very materialistic player. In the early stages of my "chess career" nearly all of my games were won by the player who won the most material. But also later on, I always preferred a bunch of material over some vague positional advantage.

Lately I've drastically changed my style in that matter, also because I now include openings like the main line sicilians in my white repertoire. Sometimes this leads to embarassing games where I play some highly dubious sacrifice and end up with a losing position (say two pieces down), while sometimes this leads to interesting and fun games. Below is a game that falls in the latter category (else I wouldn't be posting it here ;)) with some annotations. Enjoy! :)

» posted in Phobetor's Blog
« Previous | 1 2 | Next »

Comments:

by mattDearle - 38 days ago
Vancouver Canada
Member Since: Sep 2008
Member Points: 79

great game, you developed as black beautifully.  One of my favorite sacrifices is letting my opponent take my undeveloped rook with his knight while i use the extra move to go for the throat. It practically takes the knight out of the game in most cases.

by aieplm - 2 months ago
manila Philippines
Member Since: Jun 2009
Member Points: 157

good game

by mschosting - 2 months ago
Portugal Portugal
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 1095

learning never gets boring, the boring part is not actually learning :( Im not playing also for quite some time now, only a few blitz games online in serious places like orkut and hi5, I feel  like Kasparov there! :)

by Phobetor - 2 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands
Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1201

mschosting, there's a difference between a challenge and looking for big trouble :) and tbh, I don't really like chess anymore if you have to spend hours studying theory and memorizing stuff... in that sense I prefer mathematics, where learning stuff is not so boring :)

by mschosting - 2 months ago
Portugal Portugal
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 1095
If you want a challenge try going pro chess player! lol
by Phobetor - 2 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands
Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1201

Yes I can imagine that making ambigrams can be very hard, especially if the word is not so suitable. With that generator I also saw that several words did not come out so well. But fortunately for me my first name was quite suitable. The curly T and the S are not 100% as you'd normally write them, but you can easily see which letters they are and what the word is.

And good luck at uni :) it certainly won't be easy :P but if you really like maths, you'll also like maths at uni. And I've heard of several people who chose unchallenging studies like medicin or law school, who regretted it afterwards. Some even switched to maths or physics just because it's more interesting and more challenging :)

by Lord-Svenstikov - 2 months ago
Worcester United Kingdom
Member Since: Sep 2007
Member Points: 727

I've been designing ambigrams by hand as something to do over the holidays. It is always really pleasing when you get one out (some tend to look terrible no matter how I try to do them. Typically if they have the letter S off centre in them).

I'm about to start my 1st year at uni as a maths student. :D

by Phobetor - 2 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands
Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1201

Lord-Svenstikov, it's actually an ambigram of my first name. I came across an ambigram generator (at flipscript.com) and the ambigram for my name happened to look very good, considering it had to be an ambigram :)

It appeals to me because it is not only artistic, but also sort-of symmetric, which I guess pleases my mathematical brains ;) (I'm a 4th year math student at uni)

by Lord-Svenstikov - 2 months ago
Worcester United Kingdom
Member Since: Sep 2007
Member Points: 727

I liked the ambigram you used for the picture of this blog.

by _simus_ - 2 months ago
Washington D.C. United States
Member Since: May 2008
Member Points: 35

oo oo, I need material!

Oh, wait, that was a rhetorical question.  nvm.

by robmarsh - 2 months ago
Oklahoma United States
Member Since: Oct 2008
Member Points: 84

Fun Game

by EnamouredKnight - 2 months ago
Valhalla Croatia
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 184

slick, gg...

by RC_Woods - 2 months ago
Nijmegen Netherlands
Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 539

Nice! Laughing

by Phobetor - 2 months ago
Eindhoven Netherlands
Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 1201

RC_Woods, actually in this case, if you take out an engine you'll see that the sacrifice was correct. Of course in the game I couldn't be sure, but my intuition was right :)

Some Rybka 3 evals at the critical moments of the game (depth 11+):

18... Nxe5!

1. =  (-0.11): 18...Nxe5 19.Nb6 Qb8 20.Nxa8 Nc4 21.Nb6 Nd2 22.Qc3 Nxf1 23.Bxf1 Bd8 24.f4 Bxb6 25.cxb6 Qd8 26.Qb4
2. =  (0.08): 18...Bh4 19.Rd1 f4 20.Bxf4 Bh3 21.Rfe1 Bxe1 22.Rxe1 Rxf4 23.exf4 Qc7 24.f5
3. =  (0.20): 18...Bg5 19.f4 Bd8 20.Rd1 Re8 21.Kg2 Bh4

19... f4!

1. =  (-0.15): 19...f4 20.Nb6 Qb8 21.Qc3 Ra7 22.e4 dxe4 23.fxe4
2. =  (0.21): 19...Qc7 20.f4 Qa5 21.Qc2 Rae8 22.a3 Bd8 23.Rd1 Qc7
3. =  (0.24): 19...Rb8 20.f4 Rf7 21.Qc3 Qf8 22.b4 Qh6 23.Kh1 Re8

20... Qb8!

1. =  (-0.15): 20...Qb8 21.Qc3 Ra7
2. =  (0.00): 20...Qe8 21.Nxa8 Qxa8[] 22.Rc1 Qb8 23.Qc3 Rf5 24.exf4 Rxf4 25.Rcd1 Qa7 26.Rc1 Qb8 27.Rcd1 Qa7 28.Rc1 Qb8
3. =  (0.00): 20...Qd8 21.Nxa8 Qxa8[] 22.Rc1 Qb8 23.Qc3 Rf5 24.exf4 Rxf4 25.Rcd1 Qa7 26.Rc1 Qb8 27.Rcd1 Qa7 28.Rc1 Qb8

21... Bxc5!!

1. =/+  (-0.62): 21...Bxc5 22.Kh1 fxe3 23.Rg1 b6 24.Nxb6 Bxb6 25.Qc2 Qe8 26.Qa4 d4 27.Rc1 Bd5
2. =  (0.00): 21...Qxa8 22.Rc1
3. +/=  (0.53): 21...Bh3 22.Nb6 Qxe5 23.Kh1 Bxc5 24.e4 Bxf1 25.Rxf1 Rf7 26.Bd3 Qd4 27.Na4 Bd6 28.exd5

22... Qxe5!

1. -/+  (-1.22): 22...Qxe5
2. =  (-0.24): 22...Bxe3+ 23.Kg2 Qxe5 24.Bd1 Qg5+ 25.Kh1 Bh3 26.Rg1 Bxg1 27.Rxg1 Qe7 28.Qc2 Qe3 29.Na4 Bf5
3. =  (0.07): 22...Re8 23.Bd3 Qxe5 24.Na4 Bxe3+ 25.Kh1 Qc7 26.Qc2 Qe7

23... fxe3!

1. -+  (-1.53): 23...fxe3 24.Bd1 Bd6[]
2. =  (0.05): 23...Qc7 24.Na4 Bxe3 25.Bd1 Bh3 26.Rxe3 Bxf1 27.Re6 Qg7 28.Qb6 Bc4 29.Qc5
3. +/=  (0.70): 23...Bh3 24.e4

After 24. Na4? Bd6! Rybka says it's a forced mate in 8.

by mschosting - 2 months ago
Portugal Portugal
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 1095

even 24 Rg1 seems a little better to me

by hicetnunc - 2 months ago
Neuilly-sur-Seine France
Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 3186

N.N. = "Nomen Nescio " (that's Latin)

by RC_Woods - 2 months ago
Nijmegen Netherlands
Member Since: Jan 2008
Member Points: 539

I'd like to see what your opponent could have played instead of 24. Na4?

I definitely like the active play in this game and I do think being able to play for other advantages than material is a necessity for becoming truly good. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't be looking at 'Fritzish' evaluations of the position. (e.g.: If an engine thinks you are two pawns down before Na4 I'd say you just got lucky.)

Just saying listing the objective opinion of an engine along your evaluation makes annotation better and conclusions more certain for readers, because now I'm left wondering. Smile

by mschosting - 2 months ago
Portugal Portugal
Member Since: Feb 2008
Member Points: 1095
N.N = No name Im optimistic but I would go 17 h6 aiming for g5 lol Nice kill who cares about 5 points! :) Nb6 just looks such a bad move but it was quite hard to find any good one or at least one not worst :)
by Mimax - 2 months ago
Putrajaya Malaysia
Member Since: Sep 2009
Member Points: 92

By the way, who is N.N.?

by Mimax - 2 months ago
Putrajaya Malaysia
Member Since: Sep 2009
Member Points: 92

wow, fantastic game!

« Previous | 1 2 | Next »

Add your comment:

Join Chess.com for free to add your comment! Already a member? Then login now to comment.