Saturday 20 December 2008

Getting badly hacked in the Semi-Slav

While I was in Germany, I didn't just lose some games at the Olympiad. I also managed to get badly hacked in one of my server games as well. In trying to move away from my reliance on the Gruenfeld Defence, I've tried switching to the Semi-Slav as a simpler alternative. Unfortunately this switch has come without me putting in the required hours of study to make it work. So for the moment I'm learning some valuable lessons in what not to do.
However the following game wasn't lost in the opening, instead it was lost because I took some risks in the middlegame. I actually saw, and allowed, the sacrifices my opponent played, but overestimated my counter-sacrifice, which didn't work out as well as I had hoped.



2 comments:

Garrett said...

ha ha ha

I salute your bravery for playing that line without preparation.

Shaun Press said...

Actually, in this game I don't even have this as an excuse, as it was played as a CC game (rather than over the board), so I was able to look at the theory as it went! It still didn't help :(