[Malkovich Chess] Kirby vs Krill

[Kirby]

I should capture his piece, I guess.

[Monadology]

OK, so we're trading dark-square bishops. My pawn is unprotected at the moment, but it's threatening his knight, so I should have a tempo to protect it by moving my B knight to C6 after he moves his knight out of danger, unless I'm missing some kind of threat. Wish I could say that I saw that my pawn threatens his knight on the recapture before I made the move, but I didn't! Still, I'll take the unforeseen benefit.

[Kirby]

I guess my intention is to avoid being captured, and to be somewhat defensive. I guess it threatens his pawn, too.

Not a real strategy - just trying to avoid being captured.

[Monadology]

Defending the knight while attacking my pawn, so I should definitely defend my pawn. I decided to do it with my knight, rather than my E pawn, so as to get some development of my knights. If he puts more pressure on my pawn by moving his C2 pawn to C3, I'll just take it with my pawn, trading pawns when he recaptures with his B2 pawn.

[Kirby]

Don't know what to do, so I'll castle.

[paK0]

For beginners they play really well, this is a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be.

[Monadology]

Developing my other knight (finally!) Castling didn't produce a threat I need to respond to, so I should develop. This also enables me to castle kingside, and my kingside castle will be a bit more secure than his, considering I just have a displaced pawn, whereas he has an open file right where his king is thanks to the doubled pawns.

[dfan]

For beginners they play really well, this is a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be.

I think that on the previous thread Monadology claimed to be in the 1400s, which I'd equate to 10k or something? So good enough to understand the general principles and calculate a little. And considering that this is Kirby's first full game, I'm impressed that he's hanging in there.

[Kirby]

I'll threaten his pawn with my own. He's protecting with his knight, so I'm building up pressure on that spot, I guess.

[Monadology]

I could reinforce by advancing my E7 pawn to E5, but this would leave my knight on F6 ungaurded. By taking, I make another even trade (assuming he recaptures w/ the pawn on B2), which magnifies my material advantage, though I lose the benefit of having a forward pawn. As an added bonus, after the recapture, his pawn structure is in shambles while mine is in very nice shape: he'll have isolated pawns on A2, C3 and H3 (an isolated pawn is a pawn which can't be guarded by an allied pawn because the nearest pawns to the left and right are a space or more away) and doubled pawns on the F file. If we keep trading and it grinds down to an endgame, I should probably keep in mind that his pawns are quite vulnerable targets and perhaps try to pick them off.

[Kirby]

This is the only move that makes sense to me.

[tj86430]

@Kirby:

This is the only move that makes sense to me.

Which other moves did you consider?

[Kirby]

tj86430:

Well, it seems like I should take his pawn, since I can do it without getting captured immediately. So it's either with the lawn or the knight. Moving the pawn forward seems less risky since the knight seems in a safe spot right now.

That's the extent of my thought process.

[Monadology]

I don't see any immediate threats, and I don't think there are any particularly good moves for me to make at the moment, so I'm going to castle and make my king a little safer, as well as bring my rook closer to the action.

[dfan]

Taking on c3 with the knight is the only move I would have considered for White's last move. It brings the knight closer to the center and unclogs the e-file a bit for use by the rook and queen, but more importantly, it keeps the a and b pawns connected instead of isolating them (having no pawns on either side so they can't be protected by another pawn). Beginners get a little too excited about avoiding isolated and doubled pawns but you still don't want to create them for no reason. There would have to be some really concrete tactical reasons to take with the pawn in a situation like this.