I think that black can't hold on to the pawn:
Bishop to b5 check

If black takes the bishop with its pawn, then the white Queen takes the bishop with attack on black's rook and then gets the pawn back with its knight.

Tesuji? But I don't think a beginner at chess like Kirby is able to spot this.


Edit: won't work. Black can play e7-e5 to defend the rook. But I still like my B b5 check. chess-10kyu comment

I don't really know what to do here. People talk about "developing your pieces", but I don't know what that means, really. I'll threaten his bishop for a trade?

So, I have a few options here.

One is to take his dark square bishop with mine, allow him to recapture with the F2 pawn, exchanging bishops. Since I am up a pawn, making even trades can be a valuable thing, as the currently small one-pawn advantage will become relatively stronger the less material is on the board. This also has the benefit of depriving him of the bishop pair, which is a valuable thing to have (and I've already given up mine), especially in an open game, which it looks like this will be. On the other hand, it is giving up my remaining bishop, leaving me with a pair of knights, which would be better in a more closed game.

Another option is just to retreat my bishop to its sniper nest on G7, but this is a bit passive, and I don't think there's a reason to do that given my options to defend (see below) or trade. White is down a pawn, but has a much more developed position, and retreating will make the development of the dark squared bishop he just made 'free' in terms of tempo.

More likely, if I don't trade, is that I defend my bishop. There are two options here. One is to advance my C pawn to C5. This makes a nice pawn chain and, if he takes my bishop, lets me place a pawn on his half of the board on the recapture. This pawn can then be defended by moving my B knight to C6 or my E pawn to E5. The downside of this move is that I delay developing my B knight.

The other option for defense is to move my B knight directly to C6, defending the bishop. This is good because my position isn't very developed, and my knights have been dormant the whole game. On the other hand, it stops me from advancing my C pawn, which is a bummer, and means that my bishop is less well guarded. I'd much rather guard it with a cheap pawn, than a fancy knight.

After typing all of that out, I think I'm leaning strongly towards defending by advancing the C pawn, as that allows me to move my knight out on the next turn (or after the bishop exchange if that happens).

See the reasoning in my prior post. As an added bonus, the pawn chain I form occupies the dark squares, which (if it remains intact), stifles his dark square bishop. Mine, on hte other hand, is not behind my pawn chain being blocked by it, so it is impacted less by this.

I should capture his piece, I guess.

OK, so we're trading dark-square bishops. My pawn is unprotected at the moment, but it's threatening his knight, so I should have a tempo to protect it by moving my B knight to C6 after he moves his knight out of danger, unless I'm missing some kind of threat. Wish I could say that I saw that my pawn threatens his knight on the recapture before I made the move, but I didn't! Still, I'll take the unforeseen benefit.

I guess my intention is to avoid being captured, and to be somewhat defensive. I guess it threatens his pawn, too.

Not a real strategy - just trying to avoid being captured.

Defending the knight while attacking my pawn, so I should definitely defend my pawn. I decided to do it with my knight, rather than my E pawn, so as to get some development of my knights. If he puts more pressure on my pawn by moving his C2 pawn to C3, I'll just take it with my pawn, trading pawns when he recaptures with his B2 pawn.

Don't know what to do, so I'll castle.

For beginners they play really well, this is a lot more entertaining than I thought it would be.

Developing my other knight (finally!) Castling didn't produce a threat I need to respond to, so I should develop. This also enables me to castle kingside, and my kingside castle will be a bit more secure than his, considering I just have a displaced pawn, whereas he has an open file right where his king is thanks to the doubled pawns.

I think that on the previous thread Monadology claimed to be in the 1400s, which I'd equate to 10k or something? So good enough to understand the general principles and calculate a little. And considering that this is Kirby's first full game, I'm impressed that he's hanging in there.

I'll threaten his pawn with my own. He's protecting with his knight, so I'm building up pressure on that spot, I guess.

I could reinforce by advancing my E7 pawn to E5, but this would leave my knight on F6 ungaurded. By taking, I make another even trade (assuming he recaptures w/ the pawn on B2), which magnifies my material advantage, though I lose the benefit of having a forward pawn. As an added bonus, after the recapture, his pawn structure is in shambles while mine is in very nice shape: he'll have isolated pawns on A2, C3 and H3 (an isolated pawn is a pawn which can't be guarded by an allied pawn because the nearest pawns to the left and right are a space or more away) and doubled pawns on the F file. If we keep trading and it grinds down to an endgame, I should probably keep in mind that his pawns are quite vulnerable targets and perhaps try to pick them off.

This is the only move that makes sense to me.

Which other moves did you consider?

Well, it seems like I should take his pawn, since I can do it without getting captured immediately. So it's either with the lawn or the knight. Moving the pawn forward seems less risky since the knight seems in a safe spot right now.

That's the extent of my thought process.

I don't see any immediate threats, and I don't think there are any particularly good moves for me to make at the moment, so I'm going to castle and make my king a little safer, as well as bring my rook closer to the action.

Taking on c3 with the knight is the only move I would have considered for White's last move. It brings the knight closer to the center and unclogs the e-file a bit for use by the rook and queen, but more importantly, it keeps the a and b pawns connected instead of isolating them (having no pawns on either side so they can't be protected by another pawn). Beginners get a little too excited about avoiding isolated and doubled pawns but you still don't want to create them for no reason. There would have to be some really concrete tactical reasons to take with the pawn in a situation like this.