Finding the Breakdown

Something I like to do when I am playing through GM games in which one side won the game is to try to figure out where the breakdown occured. Where did the position actually turn so that victory was the likely (and eventually proven) outcome?

Here’s one such game. Let’s first start with the game itself:

If you would like to get the full experience here, first take some time and see if you can figure out where Black went wrong. We’ll come back to that soon.

First, I don’t always get the answer right, of course, nor do I even “usually” get it. What is happening, though, is I am getting better. I am able to more often identify the critical moments, and when I miss, the misses aren’t usually by as much.

The reason I have been trying to suss out where these moments happen in a game is that I am trying to develop a much better feel for what’s important in a position. I don’t know if this will ultimately lead anywhere, but it definitely doesn’t feel like the work is wasted.

OK, below is the position where the game turned. Here, it turns out that 43… f5 is an only move. That one is essentially 0.00, and anything else is minimum +1.5.

The move played in the game, 44. Re4+ is the idea in all of the lines I checked which didn’t involve f5.

After analyzing a bit, both with and without the engine, I was able to draw some conclusions. Chief among them is the idea that after the check on e4, Black has a choice of where to be cut off - either from their own f pawn, or from the outside passed a pawn - but either way definitely is cut off.

In fact, here’s a line showing what would have potentially happened if Black would have chosen to be cut off from the f pawn.

44... Kd5 45. a5 Ra8 46. Kf4 Kc6 47. Ra4 Ra7 48. a6 Kd5 49. Ra1 Ke6 50. Ke4 Kd6 51. Kf5

The good news is that this process allows me to dig a bit deeper into postitions. The bad news is that this doesn’t help me prevent blundering. At least not so far.

The work continues…

Til next time,

Chris Wainscott