Game Analysis #22: One Major Turning Point

In the last game I had with this player, I lost to him on time and for the most part he was doing pretty well except for a few mistakes that could have given me a big advantage which I wasn’t able to capitalize so it ended with a time forfeit for me. I lost the game and I challenged him to a rematch.

The rematch went pretty well for me. This time, I was White and I was facing a Benoni structure which transposed from a Modern Defense. I would say from the get go that White was doing really well because in a usual Benoni, the Black knight should be on f6 instead of the passive square e7.

Nonetheless, Black tried hard to compensate for his position. He does have a weak backward pawn which is always going to be the target of attack in this structure however, I wasn’t able to put enough pressure on it and Black neutralized the attack before it even started.

Things went downhill for Black when he failed to develop his pieces properly. First of all, the queen came out too early without any preparation or support and so it was easily pushed back and chased away which caused the weakening of the queenside somewhat. But it was when Black exchanged knights that things took a slight nosedive.

When Black’s queenside becomes weakened in the Benoni, there isn’t much left for an initiative, much less an attack. The Benoni relies heavily on the queenside attack that Black has since most of his pieces would be pointed toward that direction e.g. the fianchettoed bishop, the queenside pawn majority, along with the queen and knights all work toward adding pressure to White’s queenside.

On the other hand, White would press forward against Black’s kingside and try to rip open the king’s position. Not to mention, Black still has a weakness in the center so if White could take advantage of those positional nuances then he would have a fairly simple game.

The critical moment of the game came after move 26 when Black made a mistake, Qxd5. To me now, it is plain as day, a very obvious sequence of moves that would give White an overwhelming advantage. Though it is not completely hopeless for Black. The rest of the game would simply be a matter of technique. But that didn’t happen so what we have is a slightly drawn-out game which led to a repetition in the end.

Analysis