Jonathan had a frustrating game recently, where his hopes of an interesting game with chances to win came to nothing. Have a play through this one and have see what you think.
With hindsight, the various exchanges and the symmetrical pawn formation with likely further exchanges of Rooks were strong drawing factors. So we can suggest:
- finding an opening formation which retains more tension
- the tactical sequence at move 12 should have been avoided
- more patience and perhaps more subtlety was needed later to build up an advantage, but perhaps by then it was already too late to avoid the oncoming draw
We can see the same double-whammy of symmetrical pawns, two open central files and imminent Queen exchanges in this encounter:
So, how to play next time? Alexander Alekhin showed a game with this theme in the very first issue of chess magazine in 1935:
The whole magazine can be downloaded from http://www.ukgamesshop.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Co...
It's not impossible to play for a win from unpromising symmetrical material, but you need a bit of grandmasterly technique, and perhaps grandmasterly grit as well:
Lastly, the player who I associate more than anyone with making something out of nothing is the great Cuban champion: