#Ideas After 4. Nxe4

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

sour meteor
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Here are some additional notes I will add to my comment in the game forum:
4...Nxf6
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/17pPom6r2/analysis

4...Bf5
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/3eYKzRo7ki/analysis

4...Nd7
https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/pgn/4pVeeFjY9L/analysis

It is unlikely Levy will play 4...Nd7, but this is where play can get incredibly concrete if we play 5. Bd3. The concrete play is justified as Black will need to walk a tightrope to stay afloat, but it also means we need to remain quite accurate and very concrete with our analysis. I added 5. Qe2!? as the mainline in the notes here, simply because it doesn't require as much concrete knowledge after understanding the main idea behind the move. We'll see what the team thinks and would prefer to play, but I wanted to at least map out some of these ideas here.

Please let me know if the links work and you can access the analysis.

Chess.com
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Analyze games with the strongest chess engine in the world: Stockfish. Improve your game with the help of personalized insights from Game Review.

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pure bloom
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Responding to 4 .. Nxf6 5 Bd3 Qxd4

Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 3:35 PM
My logic is that it sounds like we can find some justification for this experimental move, and is interesting to better understand, but my concern is that if we abandon lines that have been tested and are quite reliable for White in practice, we are "on our own" a bit earlier than needed and we no longer have well established theory and practice to help guide us on this path. Ultimately, we are going to be "on our own" as a team, but I'd prefer to make such a choice later in the game from a more stable position. Anyway, that's just my own impression and appreciate the team taking time to explore our options. I'll be off now for the rest of the weekend, so I hope everyone has a great weekend! 🙂

lunar verge
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Question: When I go to the links provided, my board comes up with analysis on. Isn't using a computer for analysis forbidden? Referencing chess databases is okay.

pure bloom
pure bloom
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Analysis is fine, just not engine

pure bloom
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Coach Dane's analysis

pure bloom
lunar verge
pure bloom
broken gulch
pure bloom
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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 3:55 PM
Thanks for sharing my analysis! I'll look forward to more discussion tomorrow. Basically, 6. h4! is a move I hope the team can unite around and vote / communicate early and often here! I mentioned I am quite interested in Ntirlis' analysis surrounding 7. Be3. This is just one direction we may want to consider, and I will add some commentary tomorrow regarding 7. Nf3, which is by far the main line. Unlike 5. Ng3!, move seven will very much be a matter of taste and what the team may feel most inspired to play. Whether we commit to 7. Nf3 or 7. Be3 we can look forward to an interesting game and prepare to continue to ask Levy some persistent questions before our theoretical knowledge comes to an end.

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From chess.com:

Great work committing to 5. Ng3, team!

Levy will almost certainly move his bishop back to g6 with 5...Bg6.

It's important for us to get ahead of the next vote and make sure 6. h4! gets across the finish line. After that move, we have some interesting options to discuss. I'll look forward to connecting tomorrow.

[board with analysis here]

Until then, here's to embracing our inner AlphaZero and getting ready to make our h-pawn fly up the board! happy.png

For those of you who haven't had a chance to join our official team discord channel, please do so. The team is doing an excellent job organizing and discussing our ideas, as well as preparing our voting strategy so we can stay ahead of the vote and make informed decisions as a team.

pure bloom
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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 6:55 AM
Hello team! It looks like 6. Nf3 is running away with the vote. This means Ntirlis clever analysis after 6. h4! h6 7. Be3!? is now out the window as he deliberately avoids committing the knight to f3 unless he has more concrete information. This is by no means the end of the world, it just means we have narrowed our options to doing our best to make sure 7. h4! is played on the next move. If we can accomplish 7. h4, then we have quite a bit of opening analysis and Grandmaster practice to support our decision making. I'll add a little bit of analysis to branch out what we are trying to achieve in the main lines, but I won't deep dive unless at least 7. h4 crosses the finish line. Worst case scenario, we fail to convince enough people to play the main line ideas and we'll need to "freestyle" quite a bit earlier than necessary, but just like the Magnus game, we can unite around reasonable moves and share "anti-candidate moves."

Before we assume that scenario, I strongly recommend communicating and supporting 7. h4 (I'll make a comment about 6. h4 in the game chat as well) so we can use the "opening serve" of the White pieces to our advantage.

sour meteor
pure bloom
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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 7:37 AM
I just posted a rather involved message in the game forum explaining the reasoning behind 6. h4! and 7. h4! Hopefully we can gain some traction with these ideas.

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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 9:04 AM
We are definitely playing with a wide variety of playing strengths and experiences, as was the case with our Magnus match. I think the main point is for the involved, invested players not to get discouraged, but rather, continue to light a candle and not curse the darkness. Continue to inform the game chat of our discussions and invite them to join a more robust conversation. Will we likely play 6. h4 on this move? Perhaps not. Is it possible we won't play 7. h4 if 6. Nf3 wins? We might not play that move. That's OK. The game will continue.

When things started to go off the rails with the Magnus game, we started to really focus on uniting around a reasonable move and clearly sharing "anti-candidate moves." In this sense, if we play Nf3 and Bd3, for example, we might encounter a situation where we will want to castle. This will be an opportunity to focus on castling as our candidate move, and highlighting "NOT Bxg6" as an "anti-candidate" move. We used this strategy quite effectively against Magnus, and even when the anti-positional ...c7-c5?? was finally made, we continued to inform, encourage, and do our best to unite as a team. If we're capable of doing that against Magnus, I think we will still have our chances even if we make an inaccuracy or four. Let's have fun and let's continue to work together!
[9:06 AM]
Since we played Fischer Random against Magnus, we didn't encounter issues with people tuning out of "opening theory" discussion. This appears to be the case here. We'll soon transition "out of book," and then our "freestyling" begins as a team, which we can use our experience from that game to help us navigate this rocky terrain.

pure bloom
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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 1:15 PM
Quoting nvparanjape: "Yes. We are preparing for three possible moves by black (even though Nd7 is highly likely) and we’ll have recommendations for all those moves. So just trying to understand and learn the ideas"

I love that attitude! We're going to do our best to anticipate possible moves by Levy and try to figure out a reasonable path we are all comfortable playing. Just like in the Magnus game, we identfied candidate moves as well as "anti-candidate" moves to raise awareness to what may look tempting, but actually may not work out. Let's all learn and grow together through this game / team discussion.

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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 1:21 PM
Great question, GFun! 6. h4! is quite strong, but I think a number of less experienced players might find this move to feel rather strange and artificial. Indeed, it certainly is these things at first glance, but there is a deeper point behind the move. On the other hand, optically 6. Nf3 feels more straightforward and understandable, so that, I think, is one reason it is gaining traction. Hopefully, we can get a positive push for the h-pawn push for our next vote, but it isn't the end of the world if it doesn't happen.

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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 1:26 PM
Hi, Lily! I'm hoping to see positive, respectful engagement with the team here. To answer your question, if we end up reaching a castling vs Bxg6 moment, that is a good example of sharing Bxg6 as an "anti-candidate move." It doesn't mean Bxg6 is a losing blunder, but it is an example of providing a healthy move we can all unite around (castling) and share that we should avoid the tempting, but undesirable Bxg6. This is a good moment to share with less experienced players the lesson to "maintain the tension" and only to trade when it clearly favors us. This way, we help guide people toward a healthier move (castling), and suggesting we should avoid making a trade on g6 without concrete reasons.

Of course, other people may have different opinions on this matter, but this is a strategy we were able to use with success in the Magnus game. Not all "anti-candidate" moves need to be absolute blunders, but rather, are moves we'd rather not see and will try to help encourage others to consider another path. In general, our "anti-candidate" moves will often be one-move checks, unnecessary captures, or positional oversights. Helping the team practice avoiding these moves can be quite helpful and is a great way to spread awareness with chess understanding and growth.

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Coach DaneWorld Team Coach — 1:49 PM
We're hoping to see 7. h4 on the next move and hopefully we can all communicate this plan early and often. That being said, it may prove to be a huge lift to achieve, and we may find ourselves in a 7. Bd3 world which is also OK. We just lose our ability to ask precise opening questions through grandmaster practice / opening theory, and can just focus on "freestyling"

sour meteor
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I just shared an involved post in our game chat. Here is one part of the message, encourging us to start thinking about sharing "anti-candidate moves":

We will want to communicate a move that is healthy for our position, and address a likely move that less experienced players may find tempting that we'd prefer to avoid. So, in this case, if 7. Bd3 wins the vote, we can discuss our plan for move eight as follows:

If Levy plays 7...Ngf6 or 7...e6, let's castle our king to safety with 8. 0-0! and NOT play 8. Bxg6 👎 👎 , trading without a useful purpose.

8 Bxg6 👎 👎 is an anti-candidate move not because it is a game losing blunder (at least not on this move) or a serious inaccuracy, it is one of the three common decision-making errors that will lead us to shipwreck:

  1. Capturing without a useful purpose

  2. Checking the king without a clear purpose / follow-up response

  3. Making a single move attack, especially with a pawn, creating serious weaknesses

So, when we start freestyling as a team (once we're out of book), it is important to unite around a healthy positional move like 8. 0-0! and try to predict an "anti-candidate move" that speaks to the three typical errors I mentioned above, so in this case, NOT 8. Bxg6 👎 👎 , trading without a useful purpose.

My article sharing an update during the Magnus match describes some of the issues we faced as a team and also ends at the point the team starts to really work together and turned the game around from what was otherwise certain disaster.

Vishy's game against Topalov actually serves as a very instructive guideline for how we may want to play the game if we do not want to challenge Levy's set-up with 7. h4! and prefer a simpler game with 7. Bd3 (perfectly valid as well). Notice the exact moment Anand plays Bxg6:

pure bloom
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Coach Dane said:
Indeed, and the most visually attractive moves will continue to gain attention. If Bd3 crosses the finish line, there will be a mental "premove" to capture the bishop on g6. This will be a great moment to start sharing the three typical mistakes I mentioned in my post (capturing without a good reason, checking the king without purpose / a clear follow up idea, making one move attacks, especially pawn moves that weaken our position). If we repeat these errors to try and avoid and share a simple narrative advocating one reasonable move and then starting to identify the most likely "anti-candidate move" that will unintentionally commit one of the three typical positonal mistakes less experienced players tend to make, hopefully we'll shift the voting behavior in a more healthy direction.

broken gulch
broken gulch
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@sour meteor : the feeling in the group is that we might not get enough votes for 9.b3 - similar to the h4 that we couldn’t get across for 2 moves. Current polling is indicating Re1. It would be easier to get through. Any thoughts on it?