Playing the Pirc Defense
Greetings to all chess fans and online chess players! I have been experimenting with new openings to add to my small repertoire. If you compare chess to #play2earn game Splinterlands, I'm only playing with a few cards in my deck. By knowing more openings, it's like having a new card that you can use in your #splinterlands games. I'm solely playing with the London System as white and Nimzo Indian, Caro Kann and Slav as black. Studying the Pirc Defense adds another weapon to my arsenal or if we continue the Splinterlands analogy, another card in my deck that I can play when I choose to.
Pirc Defense
The Pirc Defense is characterized by the opening move 1. ...d6 as a reply to White's first move. You can reply with 1. ...d6 whatever White plays. It's a very flexible opening that can transpose to other openings like the Sicilian Dragon or King's Indian Defense.
The Pirc Defense is similar to the London in the sense that it's a system, rather than an aggressive opening seeking to gain an advantage at the start of the game. Chess players just need to understand the logic behind it and not memorize lines. It's a reactive defense that you want to wait what White does and develop from there. Because of this, it's an ideal opening to play in blitz that you don't have to think too much. You just react while developing your pieces and following the opening's plan to counterattack White's center and queen side. The moves come naturally like in the London System making you save time on blitz games.
My Game with the Pirc
After the moves 1. d4 d6 2. c4 g6 3. Nf3 Bg7 4. Nc3 Nf6 5. g3 Nc6 6. Bg2 Bf5 7. O-O Ne4
My last two moves Bf5 and Ne4 were rarely played in games and took us out of "book move". I liked my position as I had already equalized easily. My pieces are all developed and ready to castle. 8. Qb3 Rb8 9. Nh4
White's last move Nh4 threatens to win my Knight on e4. He also threatens to damage my pawn formation in the king side by capturing the Bishop on f5. I had to react quickly by taking first. 9. ...Nxc3 10. Nxf5
Recapturing with gxf5 will leave me with a broken pawn formation in the king side. This was White's point but I had an in between move 10. ...Nxe2+ 11. Kh1 gxf5
After the exchanges, I ended being a piece up and about to occupy the key d4 square. It was not difficult to convert my advantage to a win. 12. Be3 Nexd4 13. Bxd4 Nxd4 14. Qa4+ c6 15. Rad1 O-O 16. Qxa7 e5 17. Qa3 Qc7 18. Qd3 Ra8 19. a3 Qd7 20. Rfe1 Bh6 21. b4 Ra4 22. h4 Rfa8 23. Ra1 Qe6 24. Bh3 Qf6 25. b5 e4 26. Qc3 Bg7 27. bxc6 bxc6 28. Qc1 Qe6 29. Qg5 h6 30. Qe3 Rxc4 31. a4 Nc2 32. Qb3 Nxa1 33. Qb7 Raxa4 { Black wins on time. } 0-1
Game link: https://lichess.org/3C5Knorg/black
Playing chess is great for the mind but let's not forget about physical activities. I recently committed to exercise and to keep me motivated, I joined actifit.io