Lichess4545 S33 Review - Part 1

I have played in the last season of the Lichess 45+45 league and had some interesting games. In this post and the future part(s) I want to look at some moments of the games and analyse them.

Round 2

I missed round 1 so my first game was in the second round with black. The game wasn't too exciting and after 24 moves we reached the following rook ending

I was happy with this rook ending as black since white's rook cannot enter into black's position and white's queenside pawns will become weak. Black can also think of break throughs in the centre with e5-e4.

25.Re1 Rc5 26.Re2 b4!

I was happy with this move since white now cannot play c3 or a3 easily and black can play Ra5 to attack the a-pawn.

27.Kf1 Ra5 28.c3 Rxa2 29.cxb4 Ra1+ 30.Re1 Ra4

I looked at the pawn ending after 30...Rxe1 but I didn't see a clear win and therefore I wanted to leave the rooks on.

31.b5!?

I didn't consider this move and now 31...a5?! isn't good because of 32.b6 Rb4 33.Re5!

31...axb5 32.Rc1 Kf6 33.Ke2 Ra2

This ties the white rook to the defence of the b2-pawn and the black rook is more active on a2 than on b4.

34.Rc2 b4 35.f4 b3 36.Rd2

Now white's rook is extremly passive and has cannot move.

36...Ra1

Taking the last square away from the white rook. Now after 37.Rd1 Rxd1 38.Kxd1 the king and pawn ending is winning for black.

37.Kf3 Rc1 38.g3 Rc2

39.Re2

I missed this move but it doesn't help white much. Now both the king and the rook cannot move and the conversion is simple.

39...Kg6 40.h3 h5 41.Kf2 h4 42.Kf3 Rxe2 43.Kxe2 Kh5 44.Kf3 hxg3 45.Kxg3 f6 46.Kh2 Kh4 47.Kg2 e5 48.Kh2 e4 0-1

Round 3

In the third round, I had the white pieces and recently I mixed up my openings a lot and switched from only playing 1.d4 to 1.e4, but also 1.Nf3 and other moves. I knew that my oppenent played the French against 1.e4 and I decided to go for it to gain experience in this opening. The early moves went very well and I stood better but soon I made a big mistake which showed that I have a lot to learn about these new structures.

1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 Qb6 5.Nf3 Nc6 6.Bd3 Bd7 7.dxc5 Bxc5 8.O-O f6 9.b4 Be7

The opening went well for white up to this point but I did not know how I should deal with the f6-pawn. I felt that taking on f6 would be bad since white would give up the centre and the knight or bishop would be good on f6.

10.Nbd2?!

Looking back at the game, this move looks very strange. My idea was that black cannot take on e5 because of 10...Nxe5 11.Nxe5 fxe5 12.Qh5+ or 10...fxe5 11.b5 But the best and most natural moves are 10.Bf1 and 10.Re1.

10...Nh6?!

Black returns the favour. 10...Qc7! would have been strong since white either has to take on f6 and help the black knight develop or sacrifice the e5-pawn with 11.Bb2.

11.Nb3 Nf7

12.Bf4?

This is a big mistake and it was the result of a miscalculation. I thought that the pawn is tactically defended but I did not check my calculations and missed something simple in the final position.
Instead of this, white should have taken on f6. I refrained from this during the game because I felt that black's bishop would be too active but I should have considered this option more seriously. After 12.exf6 Bxf6 13.Nc5 black cannot take on c3 because of Na4 and after 13...Qc7 14.Re1 O-O (not 14...Bxc3 because of 15.Nxe6!) 15.Rxe6 white is a pawn up. Again 15...Bxc3 does not work, this time because of 16.Bxh7+! Kxh7 17.Qc2+

Round 4

In the fourth round, I played black against a Catalan. We quickly reached a roughly even ending but then white made some inaccurate moves and we reached the following position

Black has a slight advantage due to white's doubled pawns, the slightly awkward position of white's king and the white knight has no good squares currently. But white made things worse with their next move.

22.Rh4?

This misplaces the rook and only attacks a pawn that black can easily defend. The rook also cannot return to c4 since black could the play Be6.

22...h6 23.Bh3

23...g5?

This is a mistake and I played this move because I missed something in my calculations.
The correct move would have been 23...f5! with the same idea: 24...g5 25.Rxh6 g4 and black wins a piece. f5 had to be played first so that white cannot take on c7. White can obviously parry the threat of g5-g4 but black would still hold a large advantage, for example 23...f5 24.Bf1 e4 25.Nd4 Nxd4+ 26.exd4 Be6+ and black wins a pawn.

24.Bd7 gxh4 25.Bxc6 Rbc8

In my calculations on move 23 I missed that after 25...bxc6 white has 26.Nxe5.
The remainder of the game was not of much interest but I was surprised that my opponent resigned so early.

26.Nxe5 Kf6 27.f4 hxg3 28.hxg3 bxc6 29.Ng4+ Kg7 30.Kc4 Rd2 0-1