Narbonne 2008 Round 5 - Lesson 5

in my round 5 game i had the black pieces against a 1990 rated opponent. the opening had a been a little difficult for me and i have just castled in the hope of consolidating.



here, my opponent did what i had done in my first round game: he'd become fixated on one plan and was not considering alternatives. he wants to put a rook on the 7th rank. obviously 24.Rd7 loses to 24...Nxd7 so he played 24.Bxe5 removing the defender of d7, but after 24...fxe5 he realised in time that there was a nasty check looming (25...Bh6+) so he had to waste a move dealing with that threat (25.Rc3). this gave me time to take control of the d-file (25...Rfd8 & 26...Bf6) and the game was eventually drawn.

rather than the routine "rook to the 7th" plan, white could have played 24.Rd6 keeping the bishop pair, doubling rooks on the d-file and even threatening tactics against black's weak g6 pawn in some lines. i think that looking for plan B, plan C etc is something we could all work on.