Move 7 discussion: Everyone vs stockfish

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

7. c4 has never been played in the databases that I looked at and it doesn't look good for white. Black does not have to immediately take the bishop and it is he who appears better after 7...Qe7+ 8. Qe2 Bxb5 9. cxb5 Nbd7 10. Qxe7+ Bxe7 11. O-O. White was effectively forced to swap Queens in order to castle, which allowed black to develop his king bishop. White now must also take an extra tempo to develop his queen bishop so he is behind on development. This does not look good for us.

Agree. Along your line, 8...a6 looks even scarier for white, we would be forced to exchange both the queen and bishop to be able to castle, and black develops both his f8 bishop and b8 knight on our moves. 7. c4 is no play.

Fair enough. I've decided not to look at the posted databases. If the progressive development of white leads to a predictable riposte from black then I'm all for it. As was noted in an earlier post, stockfish may choose moves whose immediate evaluation may be considered as as weak which subsequently develop into stronger evaluations - a situation only made apparent after reviewing games played by the program.

Is it too early to start thinking about the final positions of the pieces in a potential lose, draw (or the almost inconceivable) win for this game? As a novice, I can somewhat assess an overall balance or texture of a game relative to the positions occupied by the pieces. As such I can see (very approximately) how many moves it took to get to a particular configuration. I'm working on determining and recognizing transitions from opening-early-middle-end. I've always tried to work backwards from MY winning move to a particular board configuration and I've been able to solve some tough chess puzzles this way. I quite appreciate the thought processes of this game and the discussions are a very important learning aspect for me.

[axn]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

7...Qe7+ 8. Qe2 Bxb5 9. cxb5 Nbd7 10. Qxe7+ Bxe7 11. O-O

7. c4 Qe7+ 8. Qe2 Qxe2+ 9. Kxe2 and we lose our castling rights?!

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by axn

7. c4 Qe7+ 8. Qe2 Qxe2+ 9. Kxe2 and we lose our castling rights?!

Just another reason to avoid 7. c4. Losing the castling privilege is not a big issue with the queens off of the board in this position. After all if he loses castling, he can just as easily play Re1 followed by Kf1 as he could O-O followed by Re1 if castling is still available so no extra moves are required. But while doing so black gains an edge in development so it's still bad.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

Is it too early to start thinking about the final positions of the pieces in a potential lose, draw (or the almost inconceivable) win for this game?

Not at all too early. One very important consideration, which affects the endgame primarily but is already an issue now in the opening, is pawn structure.

Look at the structure of both sides' pawns after your earlier suggested 7.c4 when Black has later played ...Bxb5 as in Gary's suggested continuation. We are forced to recapture with our c pawn. After a further exchange of our d4 pawn for Black's c5 pawn, the pawn structure - while even in numbers of pawns - favours Black in any endgame because Black will effectively have an extra (passed) d pawn. Why? Well, the kingside pawns are symmetrical (so nothing will happen with those in an endgame), and on the queenside there are only a and b pawns so, although we have 3 against 2 there, we cannot create a passed pawn of our own.

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I am in agreement with what both Gary and LaurV suggest. My vote currently goes to 7.Bxd7+.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

I've always tried to work backwards from MY winning move to a particular board configuration and I've been able to solve some tough chess puzzles this way.

Same here with the exception that we usually work backwards from our losing moves. When we win we consider we won because we are good and we played well. When we lose, we say "what the hack?" instead of the expected "we played silly". Human nature

And when we say "we work backwards" it means we take the moves back, and re-think the position, and not that we try to work/guess what move was done to come to some position (which "work backwards" would textually mean)

Thank you both, cogent on all counts.

7.Bxd7 is the optimal choice. I cannot come back at this with an equal or better alternative.

I have been lucky on occaison where I have obtained a win based on faulty deductive logic. Inductively I must
have processed my moves differently. In such a circumstance I try to understand how/why I won against a
stronger opponent - was it because my opponent made a mistake (not likely) or was it because I deduced the
correct moves (equally not likely). Thus, I try to understand the quality of the moves made by working through them forwards and in reverse.
This is very much a trial and errror process

I don't have track record of games available online to justify any of my opinions here and I would like to fix this. One of the moderators had mentioned a chess site in a recent post. Would that be an acceptable one or are there others that favoured by any of the participants?

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by jwaltos

I don't have track record of games available online to justify any of my opinions here and I would like to fix this. One of the moderators had mentioned a chess site in a recent post. Would that be an acceptable one or are there others that favoured by any of the participants?

I don't know which site the moderator mentioned, or precisely what you are looking for, but my own favourite online games database is accessible at http://www.chessgames.com/ .

Thanks Brian.

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...=20574&page=3; #28 was the post referenced.

It's a bit like watching paint dry: http://tcec.chessdom.com/live.php; trying to visualize a game played ~20-25 moves ahead
is a bit of an exercise. The annotated archives help.