The following game is rather instructive for beginners and intermediate players. What should you do when you are up a piece? How do find the plan in that given position?
This game was played by my colleague Lizawati having the black pieces against another UiTM player. The initial stage of the games were well played by both players.
- e4 e5
- Bc4 Nf6
- d3 Nc6
- c3 Bc5
- Nf3 h6
- 0-0 d6
- Re1 0-0
- d4 Bb6
- d5 Ne7
- b4 Ng4
At this position, white make the first blunder by playing 11. Be3, and the game continued:
- Be3 NxBe3
- RxNe3 (the second and biggest blunder of all !!)
Black managed to spot the blunder and promptly captured the rook leading to the position below.
Now, the question is “What should black do in this position?”. When you are playing black, you should ask “How am I better than my opponent?”. One should be able to identify the following:
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Black is up an exchange i.e. one knight for a rook
-
White’s bishop is a bad bishop since its helm in by its own center pawns
From the points given above, one should then try to improve the position so that black’s extra rook can play a better role in the game. This can be achieved by opening more lines towards the enemy position. Coupled with the fact that the c7, d6 and e5 pawns formed a pawn chain towards white’s king, the pawn move to f7-f5 appears to be very suggestive. After the exchange at e5, the rook at f8 will control the whole f-file.
Since black’s bishop is better than its white counterpart, then perhaps it would be better to let the white’s bishop to remain on the board. On the other hand, black will want to make more exchanges to make the rook stands out better. In that case, one should consider the possibility of exchanging black’s bishop for white’s knight. Either an immediate or later Bg4 could achieve this aim.