I have not looked at this game with the engine. Please look at the final position without an engine where I went for a repetition whether black should have played on. What I saw was only that after taking the bishop I can trade queens, but my pawn structure seemed quite depressed to have any advantage. Also I welcome any suggestion whether I had improvements earlier.
en.lichess.org/N2XUQxpHgvQsThis game confuses me so much. I'm not very good but I just don't understand all these repetition of moves, pawn moves in front of kings, moving Be2 then Bd3 next turn. And why no one pushed for an advantage. I don't have the knowledge base or ability to suggest moves that would've helped out. But I can say, one thing you could've done was tried anything at all instead of settling for a draw. Whats the worst that could happen? Lose some rating points... who cares? The only way to learn is to try. If it fails, at least you can see why it failed.
I don't not push for a win under all circumstances because it would question my judgement. Against a player of the same rating a draw with black is acceptable result so no pressure there to take risks.
If I were black, I would play h6 and then try to take one of the bishops with knigt as they seem too dangerous here. If you losing on time you can repeat moves to get a draw, but this position is unclear, you should just play it.
Well I guess we have two different goals from the outset. My goal when I start a game isn't to have a good result. My primary goal is to learn, as fast as possible. So although you reached a position you could achieve a draw, and although this would be a good result, you would have an easier time answering the questions you originally asked, had you pushed for more and saw what happened. In a OTB tournament, yeah, get that draw. Keep those rating points, great result as black. But online, why not try? You reached a position you knew was a good result, you can chalk everything past that up to an experiment.
What would you have done had he not taken the draw? Say he goes Rb1, or Kg2. Then what?
I was not really asking for moral lessons, rather assessment of the actual game. The only suggestion h6, well, keeping the queens on board in such a depressed position with my king in the center. Yes, the engine may like this move, but if I carried on I would certainly have traded queens ( which I could force with forking the a2 rook ), and then I'm not in time for h6.
Well, you can trade queens, take the bishop and fork a queen and a rook. Knightxd3 Qxd3, Qc4.
white played the opening pretty inaccurately (Bf1-e2-d3?!, dxc5?!) so black could legitimately play for an advantage. i'd say:
- instead of 7..Rc8, 7..cxd4 followed by Qb6 would be very typical
- i REALLY dislike 10..Be7. not only you are using a tempo to move the bishop to a worse square, there might also be traffic jams on e7 in the event that white plays h4-h5 or b4-b5.. so i don't get it. i prefer normal moves (O-O, Qc7. maybe a5 is also kinda typical but the fact that dxc5 and Rc8 were played make me think that b4 would mostly just leave a backward pawn on the c-file)
- 11..a6 13..Na7 14..Nc6 15..Na7 16..Nc6 i'm not really sure what's going on here. i see some cat and mouse with the e5-pawn but you're just handing tempi to white, definitely lost any advantage you had
a draw in the final position seems reasonable for black.
i prefer white for sure, either saccing the a-pawn while he improves his pieces further or playing a5 (which allows Nxd3 removing an important attacker, but keeps the material balance with a strong position) seems promising to me. black has some awkward pieces and dubious long term safety.
Why take a draw in the French when you trade white's light-squared bishop off for a knight?
I think white has an advantage in the final position: the white pawn on e5, the black knight on g8, the black king on e8. Sure black can gain the bishop's pair, but in the closed position this is no big advantage. If I were white I would play for a win and not with Rea1, which contributes nothing.
What could black have done better?
Why 10...Be7? Better 10...o-o planning 11...f6 and black is better.
Also next moves ...a6, ...Na7 were better ...o-o. Once white has played h4, the chance for ...o-o is gone.
