Move 18 discussion: Everyone vs stockfish

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by LaurV

Otherwise I will vote with the majority

That rather defeats the point of voting, doesn't it?

Originally Posted by VBCurtis

Perhaps a queen-swapper could post some lines that go deeper..

The position, in my opinion, for white is not pretty. Black is stronger here in terms of how far it has advanced. Any swap that pushes blacks' overall momentum back will be good for white. My instinct is to run it down to a King, pawn game. Regarding depth, pawn moves will be absolutely critical. If I were black, any potential swap would require thinking ahead to how many moves it would take to make a queen from any potential pawn..ditto for white and hence our disadvantage. The danger of an immediate checkmate lessens with more pieces out of play and it becomes a simpler game with more potential moves capping out at about 35~40..

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by 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

Why are you assuming that SF will move its Queen for two moves in a row when it could be building up an attack with minor pieces? Please post your analysis for black's move 18 for:

18...Re2
18...Rae8

I think 19...Qf5 is an especially bad move for black. What does he do after 20. Nd2?

My point is: You can come up with a much better line for black that doesn't artificially make it look like that 18. Rab1 is the best move for us. Perhaps 18. Rab1 is the best move (although I don't believe so) but this analysis is not convincing unless you show more breadth of better moves for black.

[gd_barnes]

Contrary to what some others have said, I feel that we are slightly better in the current position but we cannot let ourselves get too defensive.

Few people are looking far enough ahead here. Someone asked for a deep analysis doing a swap off of queens. I am out of town until Thursday and am on limited time with my chess set in my suitcase. Here is my best attempt at a deep analysis of what I believe to be our best line and it involves swapping the queens:

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Re5
20. f4 Re2
21. Nd4 Re4
22. b3 Ne3
23. Rd3 Rxf4
24. Re1 Ng4
25. a4 Ne5
26. Rd2 (any reasonable)
27. Nb5 or Rf1

Now we can begin to build up our attack on the d pawn.

Final comments:
We mustn't be afraid to temporarily lose a pawn to have good center control like this. Grand masters sac pawns for long-term position frequently. I do not believe most grand masters would make such a defensive move as Rab1.

Moral of the story:
We musn't let SF off the hook of having two sets of doubled and isolated pawns. We mustn't let a strong program keep queens on the board when it has a large tactical analysis advantage. This may be our only opportunity to accomplish all of these objectives with one move.

One more thing:
LaurV you should vote with your heart; not what the majority thinks. With your experience your early vote could sway the voting.

[science_man_88]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Re5
20. f4 Re2
21. Nd4 Re4
22. b3 Ne3
23. Rd3 Rxf4
24. Re1 Ng4
25. a4 Ne5
26. Rd2 (any reasonable)
27. Nb5 or Rf1

the long line I thought of when I talked about check was something like:

18. Qxb6 axb6
19 a4 <some mostly random move>
20. a5 Nxa5
21. <some mostly random move> Nc4/Nb8
22. Rxa8+/Rxa8 Re8/Kg7
23. if Re8 Rxe8+/ else go after the king Kg7/ other random move.

edit:and it's because this can happen that I suspect that the pawn capture is unlikely because it can lead to this.

Concise GD.

[WMHalsdorf]

Originally Posted by gd_barnes

Contrary to what some others have said, I feel that we are slightly better in the current position but we cannot let ourselves get too defensive.

Few people are looking far enough ahead here. Someone asked for a deep analysis doing a swap off of queens. I am out of town until Thursday and am on limited time with my chess set in my suitcase. Here is my best attempt at a deep analysis of what I believe to be our best line and it involves swapping the queens:

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Re5
20. f4 Re2
21. Nd4 Re4
22. b3 Ne3
23. Rd3 Rxf4
24. Re1 Ng4
25. a4 Ne5
26. Rd2 (any reasonable)
27. Nb5 or Rf1

Now we can begin to build up our attack on the d pawn.

Final comments:
We mustn't be afraid to temporarily lose a pawn to have good center control like this. Grand masters sac pawns for long-term position frequently. I do not believe most grand masters would make such a defensive move as Rab1.

Moral of the story:
We musn't let SF off the hook of having two sets of doubled and isolated pawns. We mustn't let a strong program keep queens on the board when it has a large tactical analysis advantage. This may be our only opportunity to accomplish all of these objectives with one move.

One more thing:
LaurV you should vote with your heart; not what the majority thinks. With your experience your early vote could sway the voting.

24...Rxd4 looks more promising for black

[richs]

Why are you assuming that SF will move its Queen for two moves in a row when it could be building up an attack with minor pieces? Please post your analysis for black's move 18 for:

18...Re2
18...Rae8

I am not assuming anything; I am just stating what I think is the best move for each side for each move after carefully considering the position.

Here is how I see the line going with your second proposed move (I will post my line on your first move later):

18. Rab1 Rae8
19. Qxb6 Nxb6
20. Nd4 Nc4
21. Rfd1 Ne3
22. Re1 Re5

I can assure you that I am not trying to come up with poor moves for black to justify that 18. Rab1 is the best move for us.

[gd_barnes]

I am now looking much more closely at 18. Rab1 for us. It feels too defensive but it may be that the defensiveness of the move is very short lived. The difficulty is that the lines are murky whereas I feel the lines are more forced with 18. Qxb6. I like less murky where SF is involved. There are an extreme number of lines to analyze for 18. Rab1. I'll see what I can come up with over the next hour.

[LaurV]

My line still goes like that:

18. Qxb6 axb6
19. Rfd1 Rd7
20. Rd4 (!)

Now, if 20...Nxb2, then

21. Rg4+ Kf8
22. Rh4

And it all depends of how important that pawn in h7 is for SF.

22... Kg8
23. Rg4+ Kf8
24. Rh4

I can hold that about 10-15 moves (no exaggeration! I played it on board!) with interleaved moves (if SF tries to avoid the draw by repetition), unless SF give the pawn or takes the king out, or etc, both the former are in our advantage*, with no queens and his pawns structure.

The 19...Re5 is weaker for black, we develop our king pawns and he needs to move the rook two-three times in a row.

-------
* the only arguable point here is if forcing his king toward the middle of the table is really in our advantage or not. It may be not, because we just play two pieces and do not develop, and he is centralizing the king, which can come very handy for pawns finale.

[gd_barnes]

Originally Posted by richs

I am not assuming anything; I am just stating what I think is the best move for each side for each move after carefully considering the position.

Here is how I see the line going with your second proposed move (I will post my line on your first move later):

18. Rab1 Rae8
19. Qxb6 Nxb6
20. Nd4 Nc4
21. Rfd1 Ne3
22. Re1 Re5

A good line. I kind of like 22. Rd3 for us there building up future attacking lines on the d pawn but we are good either way. I went ahead and took a look at 18. Rab1 Re2. Here's my analysis:

18. Rab1 Re2
19. Rf2 Rae8
20. Qxb6 Nxb6 (or axb6)
21. Nd4 forces the black rook away and we appear good.

So I think we are good against both 18...Re2 and Rae8.

Now...I took another look at your original line with 18.. Rab1 Qe6. Qe6 seems like an good potential response by SF but I wasn't fond of your followup 19...Qf5 for black. Here's my thought on that line:

18. Rab1 Qe6
19. c3 b6 (stops the strong Nc5 for us and prevents a possible future Qxa7)
20. ??

I just don't see anything promising for us. 20. Nd2 accomplishes little. We cannot swap knights without allowing black to un-isolate his d-pawn, which is a source of strength for us. 20. Rf2 allows 20...Qf5, which isn't particularly good for us.

It's hard for me to stomach possibly giving up the doubling SF's pawns a second time with the immediate swap of queens but I may come around to 18. Rab1. The tactical nature of the position also gives me a bit of pause. I now agree that it is a reasonable move but the myriad of responses are too numerous to analyze.

I think I still like 18. Qxb6.