Black vs IM Voja 60 60 ICC simul 9.3.2012

I tried out a new line I had studied in my database. 11... Be6 instead of Bd7. The idea is to stop White from continuing to build an attack while keeping the bishop pair. Black's happy to consolidate into a Queenless middlegame at the expense of the damaged kingside pawn structure.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. This game clearly deserves good analysis, my pawn sac for activity and to cripple his Queenside pawns may not have been the best idea but I didn't know how to react to White's more obvious plan of Ne3-f5. White could have continued the game with 28. Rd6 and I'm not convinced I would have been able to hold on. I was offered a draw and after a couple of minutes of thinking I took it. Houdini evaluates it +=0.53.

I've been spending the best part of my day/most mental stamina on these simuls. While it has been a lot of fun, good for my chess and confidence in general, I need to be concentrating on other things. I also have a sizable backlog of games that I need to analyze, as you can tell from the previous blog posts. So I don't expect to play another simul for at least a week.

Thank you for reading, comments are always appreciated.