Tonight I had the opportunity to play an extra rated OTB game at Marshall. They have a monthly team tournament, which takes place every 2nd Tuesday of each month. One team was short a player and need a fill-in. Was I interested? Absolutely!
So tonight I found myself on the En-Croissants, paired against one John R. Galvin. Why does that name sound familiar... Oh, right - he runs the chess program at IS 318, one of the strongest in NYC public schools that was featured in the documentary Brooklyn Castle!
The Game
Anyway, onto the game. I had white and he played the Caro-Kann, so I had to play the Panov. Of course, I've been trying this thing lately called "don't just memorize openings - try to work out the tactics and understand the game over the board" and, well, you can see how it turned out:
https://lichess.org/study/D74uC7OR/eFH8wzNb#0
Some Take-Aways from this Game
Ok, I don't want to memorize openings... BUT maybe if I'm going to continue playing the Panov (which I will) at least memorize 1 or 2 more moves in that forcing main-line variation. At the very least, remember that Qxb7 is "thematic" in the Panov.
If you play the Panov and black's king does NOT lose castling rights, then start thinking hard about king safety - or look for sharp counter-play immediately (again...Qb7 was right there).
I am discarding moves too early in calculation. In the game I didn't calculate the Qb7 line deeply enough... in fact, I stopped about 2 moves in. This is something that IM Andras Toth emphasizes a lot - Dont. Stop. Calculating just because you think you hit a bad line. Go a few moves further and confirm that it's bad or good. In my case, I'm stopping too early.
And on my scoresheet, I had circled as "critical positions" the two moves where I played the wrong thing - 10. Bb5 instead of 10. Qxb7, and 14. f4 instead of 14. Qb7. I knew they were critical positions and instead of playing the aggressive move, I played something weaker because I did not calculate far enough.
