Hi everyone. I would like to make a more personal blog post, about my own Horde Chess mistakes. In particular, ones I made during endgames I played recently.
Here is the first position, against s7baxshi:
I felt quite nervous in this position. The b6 pawn seems helpless, and the kingside pawns will have a rough time advancing against a king and a queen. So I played 44.b7?, hoping to stall the fall of the pawn by another move, but it it useless after 44… Qb5 and the pawn will be gone anyway, not even stalling Black in the process.
Instead, I should have played 44. e6! which actually indirectly defends the pawn since 44… Q:b6? will be answered by 45. g7! with an inevitable promotion and easy win.
The second position, against hyperchessbotauthor, was a rare pawns-vs-rook position:
Here the position is conveniently separated into the kingside situation of pawns against a rook, and a queenside situation of pawn chain against a king. I thought the kingside pawns are protected for the moment, so I started advancing in the queenside with 47. a4? which could lead to loss after 47… Kc6! with 48… Rg7 and capturing all of the unorganized pawns on the kingide.
The best move was the counter-intiutive 47. g4! and after 47… R:f4 48. d7 Rf8 49. g5 Rg8 50. g6 Ke6 51.h6
The remaining 2 pawns on the kingside proves to be more powerful than the original 3.
In both cases, I preferred some immediate comfort rather than the harder-to-calculate way to generate enough promotion threats. While some mistake will inevitably happen from time to time (especially with the time settings I play), I think we can learn from past mistakes and get better, and more beautiful game play. So one day I hope to make a post about my so-cool-mind-blowing tactics (;
