Well, he has done it again. He has pulled hardware in his last three tournaments, and this time, he placed in the top 8 with 3 1/2 points in the State Scholastic Open tournament. Wee haw.Now the plea for help.
So interestingly enough, even with his loses to the Fried Liver Attack, he is compelled to play e5 as black. (He does not play open games as white). And I generally play against him either Ng5 systems against the Two Knights, or as he had discovered the Evans gambit in Giouco Piano systems.
His solution is instead of 3. ... Nf6, he has changed to f6. Now in the databases this move does not get a lot of love as white mostly wins. But his idea is to allow the white bishop room to breath on the c8-h3 diagonal. And to castle queenside, and to attack full on king side. He has no idea what to do with the gambit, so he takes it and has tried a couple of things. And what has happened is two relatively strong king side attacks, but he has all the times we have played this left his King centralized. (which actually works pretty well here).
We are 2 and 1 here, and he gets stronger each time, but there are very few external resources about his ideas, and I was wondering what you guys think, how should I take him down? What do you think the themes are for white? The game tends to go Bxb4 6.c3 Bc5 7. d4 Bb6. I suppose simplifying by taking dxe5 seems like a good idea, but really, a gambit followed by simplification that opens up the diagonal for his dark bishop against my king. Fritz likes it, but it seems antithetical, which is why I keep dismissing over the board.
Why did I teach him this game?! Why does he have his own ideas? Cripes...
More Later...
4 comments:
I'm not familiar with the fried liver, but the theme seems clear to me. White is ahead in development and the black king hasn't a save place. So:
1. Keep his king stuck in the middle.
2. Open lines against his king AT ALL COSTS. That's why you play a gambit.
Your positional worries are way to subtle here. Throw the sink at him!
It looks like your son is having a classical chess education. Bravo!If it werent for the knight on c6 white would be able to play the classical lines against the Damiano Defense (see chapter two of your Chess Master vs Chess Amateur) Unsure if working to remove the knight on c6 is workable but worth a look.
Let his ideas bloom: don't be a micromanaging chess dad. I say that not as a father, but as a meddling blogger.
What a creative idea to a tough opening from white! It will be fun for him to learn the ins-and-outs of that opening he has discovered, and the plan sounds fun: castling queenside with a head start on the kingside pawn storm race that will follow. He should go for it.
The standard response to Ng5 is awful for black: basically a gambit with a demolished queenside pawn structure. At least his solution doesn't lead to that. Before anyone says it, yes I know that all the books says that black has active pieces as compensation. Yippee: in other words black is dead if this goes to the endgame, as he is a pawn down and his queenside pawn structure is ruined. Plus, the compensation isn't that good, unlike the King's Gambit.
Black's weaknesses in the standard two-knights defense has made me want to give up on the Two Knights and go for the Boring Piano. I'll give his defense a shot in some blitz. More important than its ultimate soundness (which only matters for GMs) is its ultimate fun-ness.
It's important to remember that the opening just doesn't matter much at his level. He could play 1. ..a6 2...h6 and it wouldn't really matter. His winning percentage might go down by 5 percent or something, since it is the person strongest with tactics in the middle game that will win nearly all of the games at that level.
btw:I am curious as a scholastic player what is he playing against the Kings gambit? Does he see it often? Most scholastic players play I find play the falkbeer
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