Lucky win.. For some reason I keep falling off during the opening, and only come back during middlegame
What tactics did I miss? And which direction to take to improve my game?
with my comments:
Hi. I am not sure whether this is meaningful but I think the dark-squared bishop might have been better on the kingside, maybe Bg5 rather than Bc4 was better. I have never played the nimzo-indian before though.
Hi mlg,
some thoughts about the game:
I haven't looked at the engine, but I would play 10.e5, as suggested by your comments. Why? The Weak Spot of kingside castling is normaly g7 or h7. g7 in this position is not weak, as you cannot really attack it. But after you play e5, the knight has to move and you can play Ng5 or Bd3 as a followup, weakening the black Kingside. I haven't calculated anything, but weakening the opponents King is always a good Idea. Bc4 instead is an ok move I guess, but I cannot see any real potential the bishop will have on the a2-g8 diagonal. What will it be attacking? Bd3 looks more logical to me, if you don't want to commit to e5 yet.
a4 preventing b5 looks also logical. But after b6 you seem to lose the threat a bit. You are trying to play in the center, but your King is stil on e1! So if you open the center, you expose your own king! That is why you lost your pawn. If instead you could have castled and just then continued with your plan of c4-d5 (just as a note: e5 is winning the h7 pawn for nothing, if I am not mistaken). Positionally c4-d5 seems like a sound Idea, but as I already wrote: Your King is crying when you start to open the center with him in the middle. Before you should worry about restricting your oponents pieces (which is a sound Idea), you should take care of your King.
Afterwards, you seem to have played, more or less OK, considering you are completely lost and only a blunder by him could have saved you.
And one other note: How do you want to get better at the game, if you think it is ok to lose to a higher rated oponent? If you want to get better, you need to beat those guys! Yeah, right now he has a higher rating, but that does not mean, that you have to hide your head in the sand. He has the obligation to show you, that he is better. So stop beeing afraid of playing higher rated oponents. Beat em!
Hope that helped a bit.
Greetings
brough
some thoughts about the game:
I haven't looked at the engine, but I would play 10.e5, as suggested by your comments. Why? The Weak Spot of kingside castling is normaly g7 or h7. g7 in this position is not weak, as you cannot really attack it. But after you play e5, the knight has to move and you can play Ng5 or Bd3 as a followup, weakening the black Kingside. I haven't calculated anything, but weakening the opponents King is always a good Idea. Bc4 instead is an ok move I guess, but I cannot see any real potential the bishop will have on the a2-g8 diagonal. What will it be attacking? Bd3 looks more logical to me, if you don't want to commit to e5 yet.
a4 preventing b5 looks also logical. But after b6 you seem to lose the threat a bit. You are trying to play in the center, but your King is stil on e1! So if you open the center, you expose your own king! That is why you lost your pawn. If instead you could have castled and just then continued with your plan of c4-d5 (just as a note: e5 is winning the h7 pawn for nothing, if I am not mistaken). Positionally c4-d5 seems like a sound Idea, but as I already wrote: Your King is crying when you start to open the center with him in the middle. Before you should worry about restricting your oponents pieces (which is a sound Idea), you should take care of your King.
Afterwards, you seem to have played, more or less OK, considering you are completely lost and only a blunder by him could have saved you.
And one other note: How do you want to get better at the game, if you think it is ok to lose to a higher rated oponent? If you want to get better, you need to beat those guys! Yeah, right now he has a higher rating, but that does not mean, that you have to hide your head in the sand. He has the obligation to show you, that he is better. So stop beeing afraid of playing higher rated oponents. Beat em!
Hope that helped a bit.
Greetings
brough
Just briefly looked through the game. One thing that stood out me is that you waited way too long to castle. Prioritize king safety!
I see.. at the time I was thinking I wanted to lock the b7 bishop off before castling, but yeah.. I'll remember to keep my king safe before attacking next time!
You came out of the opening very well after black traded his bishop with 6...Bxc3+.
You missed several opportunities to blockade his pawn e6 with the advance e5 so as to lock his remaining bishop c8 and prevent him from freeing himself with ...e5. 10 e5, 11 e5, 13 e5 (winning pawn h7), 14 e5, 16 e5, 17 e5.
You played too fast, which leads to shallow play.
You missed several opportunities to blockade his pawn e6 with the advance e5 so as to lock his remaining bishop c8 and prevent him from freeing himself with ...e5. 10 e5, 11 e5, 13 e5 (winning pawn h7), 14 e5, 16 e5, 17 e5.
You played too fast, which leads to shallow play.
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