Move 18 discussion: Everyone vs stockfish

I'm with LaurV also. Swap out queens.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

It looks like we may well fail to reach a general consensus for this move, in which case the voting will decide it.

My take is that we have no chance of middlegame activity once the queens are off the board, sacrificing pawns doesn't look to me like changing that, and our b pawn needs protection. Secondly, I think we should let Black do the exchanging of queens. If Black exchanges, our knight reaches d4 (protecting the invasion square e2) without loss of tempo. If Black ducks the exchange we have chances of initiative against Black's wide open castled king. Whereas if we exchange then we have invasion down the a file to contend with as well.

We are effectively giving up a tempo by playing Rab1. What do you suggest we do with our rook after that. It's a terribly defensive position. What if SF never swaps the queens? We're just sitting there while he lines up his attack on the e file.

What you are forgetting is that if SF does Nxb2, his knight is in an awkard position and out of play for a couple of moves. We could use the position to mount a strong counter attack.


The invasion of e2 is not a problem after we swap queens, i.e.:

18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1 Re2 20. Nd4! Now we can protect our pawn with tempo by playing b3 the next move.

I see the best line as:

18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1. What does black do here? He's in a tricky spot since Re2 does not work. He has 19...Nxb2 20. Rxd5 and we are in good shape. Our rook is strongly posted and his knight is in the corner and he'll need to lose a tempo to get it out He has 19...Rd7 20. Rdb1 and both sides are defensive and drawish. He has 19...Re5 20. f4 and black is stuck with 20...Re2 and then we play 21. Nd4 and we're good like the previous line. He can try 19...Ne3 20. Rd2. We're fine here.

We cannot tie ourselves down with Rab1. SF does not have to swap the queens right away. He can build up his attack while we are pinned down. I highly recommend against it. We have a strong game now. Let's not get defensive.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

He can try 19...Ne3 20. Rd2. We're fine here.

except the continued attack of d2 with Nc4 now the rook is again under attack. other than repeating board position there's no real threat to SF with that move.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

We are effectively giving up a tempo by playing Rab1. What do you suggest we do with our rook after that. It's a terribly defensive position.

We regroup. Play Rf2, c3, Nd2 (to dislodge the Black knight), Kf1, Rbe1.

What if SF never swaps the queens? We're just sitting there while he lines up his attack on the e file.

We force Black to resolve the situation with the queens when we break the pin with Rf2.

What you are forgetting is that if SF does Nxb2, his knight is in an awkard position and out of play for a couple of moves. We could use the position to mount a strong counter attack.

Unfortunately I don't see this strong counter attack for us. We are grovelling to the extent that the couple of tempi Black needs to take the b pawn and return the knight will be insignificant.

The invasion of e2 is not a problem after we swap queens, i.e.:

18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1 Re2 20. Nd4! Now we can protect our pawn with tempo by playing b3 the next move.

I see the best line as:

18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1. What does black do here? He's in a tricky spot since Re2 does not work. He has 19...Nxb2 20. Rxd5 and we are in good shape. Our rook is strongly posted and his knight is in the corner and he'll need to lose a tempo to get it out He has 19...Rd7 20. Rdb1 and both sides are defensive and drawish. He has 19...Re5 20. f4 and black is stuck with 20...Re2 and then we play 21. Nd4 and we're good like the previous line. He can try 19...Ne3 20. Rd2. We're fine here.

We cannot tie ourselves down with Rab1. SF does not have to swap the queens right away. He can build up his attack while we are pinned down. I highly recommend against it. We have a strong game now. Let's not get defensive.

I agree that after 18.Qxb6 axb6 19.Rfd1 Black's 19...Re2, which I suggested in haste after LaurV's contribution, doesn't work. However I disagree with the assessment that our game is strong. On the contrary, Black merely needs to spend a move protecting d5, for example, 19...Rd8 (better to use this rook than its already active one with your suggested 19...Rd7) and Black is threatening to invade with the knight on e3 or with a rook on e2 in addition to still having our b pawn under attack.

[WMHalsdorf]

Why is everyone overlooking
18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1 Re5

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by WMHalsdorf

Why is everyone overlooking
18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1 Re5

I was more focused on what the big deal about b2 was I think. that and that if we didn't take it wheat could happen.

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by WMHalsdorf

Why is everyone overlooking
18. Qxb6 axb6 19. Rfd1 Re5

Gary mentioned it in his last post, writing "He has 19...Re5 20. f4 and black is stuck with 20...Re2 and then we play 21. Nd4 [...]".
19...Rd8 looks better to me.

[WMHalsdorf]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

Gary mentioned it in his last post, writing "He has 19...Re5 20. f4 and black is stuck with 20...Re2 and then we play 21. Nd4 [...]".
19...Rd8 looks better to me.

21...Re4 22.b3 Ne3 23.Rd3

[richs]

I strongly advocate Rab1, protecting our b pawn. I think exchanging queens would be a blunder on our part. I have closely looked at the position and I still feel the line I gave last move is the best for us:

18. Rab1 Qe6
19. c3 Qf5
20. Qf2 Rae8
21. Nd4 Qg5

If we exchange queens, here are two lines I examined, both of which I feel leave us in not as good a position as the line above:

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Re5
20. f4 Re2
21. Nd4 Re4, forking the knight and pawn

and

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Nd4 Nxb2, and we lose the pawn
20. Rfb1 Nc4
21. a4 Rc7

[VBCurtis]

I lack the skill to have a meaningful opinion here, but the folks advocating Rab1 are making a better case than the queen-swap folks.
Perhaps a queen-swapper could post some lines that go deeper, showing the purported attacks or benefit we're going to realize from black's knight being out of position after it eats our pawn?
To me, looks like we play defense now or spend more than 1 move on defense after the queen swap.

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by VBCurtis

I lack the skill to have a meaningful opinion here, but the folks advocating Rab1 are making a better case than the queen-swap folks.
Perhaps a queen-swapper could post some lines that go deeper, showing the purported attacks or benefit we're going to realize from black's knight being out of position after it eats our pawn?
To me, looks like we play defense now or spend more than 1 move on defense after the queen swap.

Actually, richs made our case quite clear.

Originally Posted by richs

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Re5
20. f4 Re2
21. Nd4 Re4, forking the knight and pawn

We said as much as the first 3 half-moves, and in this case maybe Re5 response would not be the best move, I was more afraid of Rd7, to which is not easy to reply or threat at all, mostly "looking" very drawish here. Remark that Nxb2 does not look very tempting for black now. In fact, it depends a lot of how much weight SF puts on that single pawn in the center of the battlefield. I accept that this is very "subjective" method and I recognize that my move had mainly two reasons: one is to simplify the board (same idea why we captured the horse in f6, when some argued that Qd4 would have been a much better move, keeping the control of the board and keeping our bishop-agains-horese advantage, for which we worked hard in the past, but I agreed to exchange exactly for that, to simplify the board - once we decided that we go for a draw, that is the way). And the second reason, well, even more subjective: I am dying with curiosity to see if SF beats back with the a2 pawn or with the horse, haha.

You may be totally right, about spending more moves later, for defense.

Edit:
If I find a good continuation for
18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Rd7
then I will vote for queen exchange. Otherwise I will vote with the majority