Header tag

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Chess game: Sicilian Blunders

How not to play the Sicilian as White... .made a complete waste of my white-squared bishop, and got into all sorts of trouble with reckless pawn advances and finished off by not protecting my king.


Worse still, I isolated my king behind a doubled-pawn position and could not fight off black's direct attack.  The game ended very quickly after that.
Let's take a look at my biggest mistakes in this game (I'm sure they're meant to be called learning points).
By move 15, I've completely isolated my white-squared bishop.  I should surely have moved it back to c2 on move 13, to give it some hope of remaining in the game.


16. Be3 shows what a wasted move 9 Bd2 was.  I should have been more decisive earlier in the game.
18. d4 was a vast mistake.  I should have left the pawns blocked up in the middle.  As it was, I then decided to ditch my bishop (another mistake) and by move 23 my opponent has mobilised his pieces and is already hitting all the weaknesses in my pawns (and there are plenty to aim for).


24. Rc3 was a mistake.  Yes, it protects the pawns (although rooks should probably never have this duty at this point in the game), but it would have been better for me to play Rfd1 and provide my king with a way out.


From this point on, my pawns on f2 and f3 block my pieces from defending my king, and it's just a matter of time...!

No comments:

Post a Comment