Mini 686 - Chess Mafia (Done)

[The Central Scrutinizer]

What I see as the two most likely lines of 10. Qc4:

10. Qc4 d5
11. Qb5+ Bd7
11. Qxb7 Qb8

And then what have we accomplished? In order to even make our queen relevant again we have to move Qa6 first, which is a wasted move. Or we could queen trade, if you think going up a pawn is a fair trade for letting black develop while our position stagnates.

10. Qc5 d5
11. Qb5+ Qd7
12. Ne5

Which waS suggested as a positive line by someone, but I don't see it ending well for us.

12. Ne5 Qxb5
13. Bxb5+ Bd7

At which point we could play suicide chess, as I surmised might happen.

14. Bxd7 Nxd7

And the optional

15. Nxd7

For extra TCS wrist-slashing goodness?

Or...

14. Bc4

Oh, no, wait, they played 10. ... d5. So we move Bxb5+, or run the hell away.

How else does this line end? Am I just expecting the most moronic? What do you guys think, if you're thinking at all?

[Goatrevolt]

Getting a pawn at the cost of development is acceptable. Black has zero threats on our king right now. We can afford to give them some development in exchange for a pawn advantage. We just have to trade pieces away and win the resulting endgame a pawn up.

Your second scenario is pretty much accurate, except I wouldn't capture the knight at d7 with our knight at e5. He has a strong presence there and will be cramping black's kingside for some time. If black captures our knight with his, then we have a protected advanced pawn, which will be powerful in the endgame.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I understand your line of thinking, even if I disagree with it. Besides that rank is doubled anyway... I just don't see the marginal advantage to be gained in losing our queen (who is developed right now, as opposed to the black queen), and allowing black to develop both a rook and a bishop in exchange for a doubled pawn.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

My philosophy is borne from many games with a friend obsessed with material advantage at the cost of position. Oftentimes in the mid to late-mid game I would see him give up power in the center to gain a pawn, and it was the death of him because I refused to play suicide chess in the late-mid, choosing to strangle him with points of power instead.

Maybe with two grandmasters material advantage makes all of the difference... but among us mortals I think we should consider other aspects of the game.

And if Qc4 is inevitable, I'm sure we can still win. I don't think it's a game breaker for us. I just disagree with the mob on this one.

[Indigo Heron]

What I see as the two most likely lines of 10. Qc4:

10. Qc4 d5
11. Qb5+ Bd7
11. Qxb7 Qb8

Really? If Black plays Qb8...I'd be shouting for joy (in a way).

11. ...Qb8. 12. Qxb8 Rxb8 13. Ne5 (or Bd3) Ne4 14. Nxd7 Kxd7 with the advantage in our play again as Black's king is forced to take the knight, which costs him a castling move, which gives us an edge.

And then what have we accomplished? In order to even make our queen relevant again we have to move Qa6 first, which is a wasted move. Or we could queen trade, if you think going up a pawn is a fair trade for letting black develop while our position stagnates.

10. Qc5 d5
11. Qb5+ Qd7
12. Ne5

Which was suggested as a positive line by someone, but I don't see it ending well for us.

On the contrary. What is supposed to happen if we go down this step is not much further ahead than move 12. Take a good look at it.

12. Ne5 Qxb5
13. Bxb5+ Bd7

At which point we could play suicide chess, as I surmised might happen.

Well, I call it trying to take advantage of Black's position. I also don't like the fact that you are trying to avoid casualties, when White can take hold of the game. Casualties have to be accepted to gain an advantage.

14. Bxd7 Nxd7

And the optional

15. Nxd7

For extra TCS wrist-slashing goodness?

Nope. I was looking more at Nxd7 Nxd7, but I'll take a look at Bxd7 Nxd7...

Or...

14. Bc4

Oh, no, wait, they played 10. ... d5. So we move Bxb5+, or run the hell away.

How else does this line end? Am I just expecting the most moronic? What do you guys think, if you're thinking at all?

What on earth are you talking about here? I don't understand. You seem angered that we won't follow your suggestions (if they actually are suggestions). Are you trying to mislead us somewhere?

[Indigo Heron]

EBWOP: Uh....

On the contrary. What is supposed to happen if we go down this step is not much further ahead than move 12. Take a good look at it.

This post is not TCN's. It's mine. I simply misplaced the quote tags.

[SensFan]

Maybe with two grandmasters material advantage makes all of the difference... but among us mortals I think we should consider other aspects of the game.

Your play should not be different in the slightest whether your opponent is a Grand Master or has only learned how to move the pieces.

[Pesco47]

Maybe with two grandmasters material advantage makes all of the difference... but among us mortals I think we should consider other aspects of the game.

Your play should not be different in the slightest whether your opponent is a Grand Master or has only learned how to move the pieces.

But don't forget that we're just common folk too.

[Awesome Pants]

Votecount!

Moves

Qc4 (4) - Indigo Heron, sirdanilot, Pesco47, Goatrevolt
g3 (2) - Gorrad, The Central Scrutinizer
Qb5 (2) - SensFan, Lawrencelot

Not voting (1) - veerus

Players

Not voting (9) - SensFan, Goatrevolt, Lawrencelot, sirdanilot, Indigo Heron, Gorrad, Doomsday, Pesco47, The Central Scrutinizer

5 to lynch/move

[SensFan]

Maybe with two grandmasters material advantage makes all of the difference... but among us mortals I think we should consider other aspects of the game.

Your play should not be different in the slightest whether your opponent is a Grand Master or has only learned how to move the pieces.

But don't forget that we're just common folk too.

Right. But why should the skill of either player dictate whether a certain move is good or not?

[veerus]

Hey guys. I've been following the game since about day 3 or so and was hoping I'd be able to replace in as I love chess. So here I am, thanks mod for taking me!

I must say I haven't been too happy with white's play so far and I'll do my best to try and improve that as we enter the middle game. I will review the options and make a move vote tonight.. please don't move until I post again later.

[veerus]

Ok, i've finished re-reading and making notes. Before I post some analysis in the next post, I have a couple of questions for the

mod

.

1) What happens when the game ends in a draw?

2) Rules indicate that if equal # of players/mafia is present, mafia wins. I disagree with his as the town still has a chance to win the chess game. Just wanted to make sure that this was considered...

[veerus]

Ok, here's my analysis up to this point:

1. e4 c5 -- e4 was a good opening as it lends itself to more tactical and open games which in such a move-by-committee setup is significantly better than the closed positions that 1. d4 creates

2. Nc3 Nc6 -- meh.. while Nc3 is less popular, it is also less aggressive and less "sound". There's a reason why Nf3 is the more popular move...

3. f4 e6 -- f4 is a poor move against sicilian as it opens the king for nothing instead of Nf4 to fight for control of the center.

4. Nf3 f5 5. exf5 exf5 -- more or less forced by the poor choice of 3. f4

6. Qe2 Be7 -- ?? Qe2?? and slow white's development to a screeching hault??

FOS: SensFan

for first suggesting it, though his 7. Qe3 follow-up is decent (but the whole move sequence is wasteful).. 6. Bc4 was best here.

7. Nd5 Nb4 -- ?? why waste a move and attack a piece that's

quadruple(!)

protected without a means to follow up??

FOS: Pesco

for first suggesting it.. You guys should've continued with 7. Qe3 to free up the bishop.. SensFan, why did you abandon this line??

8. Nxb4 cxb4 -- forced

9. d4 Nf6 -- Qe5!! sigh...

Ok so here we are.. not all is lost, though our position is in shambles. The white squared bishop has nowhere to go. The black squared bishop has nowhere to go as well now that 9. d4 took away the fianchetto option. I strongly advise those voting 10. g3 to reconsider. Our own pawn on d4 takes away the effectiveness of the bishop on b2.

So the question is how do we free up our bishops and keep the pressure on the e-file? Simple:

move: 10. Qe5

Here's why:
10. Qe5 attacks the pawn on f5 and keeps the pin on the bishop on e7. After that we can follow up with 11. d5 which frees up the fianchetto option again. Getting the queen out of the way also gives us some options with placement of the white squared bishop and subsequent castling.

10. Qb5 and 10. Qc4 are both wasteful moves. Especially Qb5 since Qe5 is much better becuase it still attacks the f5 pawn and keeps the pin. Qc4 is good if you wanted to force a queen trade (10. Qc4 d5 11. Qb4+ Qd7) but given how active our queen is compared to how immobile black's queen is, we don't want to trade. The time to attack is now.

I must say that whoever ends the day by moving Qc4 without a really good counter to my suggest and finishes off the day should be considered as #1 scum suspect whos lynch should immediately follow.

Also, while I'm at it, here is the list of people who have dominated my notes so far by making the most "bad" suggestions for white:

IH, Gorrad and Pesco.

SensFan deserves special mention for convincing the town to play the restricting 6. Qe2 and then not following up with his own plan of 7. Qe3.

[Awesome Pants]

1) What happens when the game ends in a draw?

Nobody wins, game over.

2) Rules indicate that if equal # of players/mafia is present, mafia wins. I disagree with his as the town still has a chance to win the chess game. Just wanted to make sure that this was considered...

In this situation, the only possible way the town could win is if a mafia member voted for a move that would put them in checkmate (or voted to lynch a fellow mafia member). Obviously in theory it would make sense for it to be a draw in that situation, but in practice it makes it considerably harder for the mafia to win.

[Indigo Heron]

You doubt the effectiveness of the Grand Prix Attack? It's a very useful counter to the Sicilian and has gotten me out of many Sicilian games victorious.

If we play Qc4, Black would lose out if they wanted a queen trade. Now is the time to be aggressive with our forces, but I suggest Qc4 because we gain a materiel advatage going into the game, as well as applying pressure to Black.

@SensFan's FoS: I was also wondering about that as well. I had the sense that SensFan was trying to inquire about what I thought as the best moves for white on the first few pages of the topic, being expertly manipulated to see how my playing strength was.

P.S. I'll be thinking about Qe5 (a move that didn't initially come up in my head) till then.

[Pesco47]

It's quite a null-tell saying that someone is scum for a move that looks bad in retrospect. At the time of the move, it looked good and solid. In reference to the current board position, any move could have been good since it leads to a whole different situation.

[Goatrevolt]

Unmove

I can't believe I didn't even consider Qe5. It's basically the same principle of Qb5 (pressuring the unprotected f pawn, while opening up our white-squared bishop). It doesn't have the pin on the d pawn, but keeps the pin on the bishop, and pins the knight if white goes for g6.

I'm going to look into it.

[Gorrad]

Dude. Qe5? Black moves d6 and we're all but forced back to where we were.

[Goatrevolt]

Black's likely response will either be d6 or d5. I see good variations to both of those moves. Thus:

Move Qe5

[Pesco47]

When d6 happens, black's cB will be protecting the 'free pawn'. Pay attention.

[Goatrevolt]

When d6 happens, black's cB will be protecting the 'free pawn'. Pay attention.

I stand by my assertion. I see good variations to both d6 and d5.

[veerus]

I can't believe I didn't even consider Qe5.

Actually I believe you were the only one to mention it early on.. you just didn't look at it hard enough. Qe5 is obviously not as good as it would've been on the last move when we would've won a pawn (at least), but it is still our best move.

[Goatrevolt]

To clarify, I know that d6 opens the bishop to defend the f pawn. My "good variations" do not include anything like this:

11. Qxf5...BxQ

[Indigo Heron]

Okay, I just came back from college, and have had some time to look at the position properly. My immediate concern with this question is that Black has a chance to fortify his position with O-O, which makes our job a lot harder. Qc4 blocks the castling move from happening, keeping their king exposed in the centre.

So...

10. Qe5 O-O (assuming) 11. Bd3 d6 12. Qe2 and we are back where we are, but Black is now securely holed up. an alternative move to 11. ...d6 is 11. ...d5 if Black wants to take the game to us. Then we can choose either 12. O-O, by which Black plays Ne4, which is BAD (AND I MEAN REALLY BAD - SEE ME USING CAPITAL LETTERS?!). Other alternatives are Bxf5 and Qe2 (which brings us back to square one).

[SensFan]

6. Qe2 Be7 -- ?? Qe2?? and slow white's development to a screeching hault??

FOS: SensFan

for first suggesting it, though his 7. Qe3 follow-up is decent (but the whole move sequence is wasteful).. 6. Bc4 was best here.

That's complete bullshit. First of all, 51%+ agreed with the move, plan on FoSing them, too? Next, explain exactly what the problem is with pinning the Black Bishop to e7.