Beware of pitfalls in a solo journey

Chess Checks

Chess players in general, prefer aggression to defence and many a time get their major pieces like the queen or rook trapped after infiltrating the enemy territory.

Generally this happens when the pieces embark on a solo journey or they are left for too long in the enemy territory.

In the game which follows, Black queen invades the enemy territory rather early in the game. Thereafter Black errs as he is unable to get his other pieces into the attack and his queen is virtually stranded in enemy territory, only to be trapped a few moves later.

White: Effim Geller – Black: Evgeni Vasiukov

Moscow Veterans, 1991
Caro-Kann Defence
 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nd2 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nf6 5.Nxf6+
White can also develop with 5.Bd3
5. ..gxf6 6.Nf3

The other popular option is 6.c3 Bf5 7.Ne2 h5 8.Ng3 Bg4 9.f3 Be6 10.Bf4 Qa5 11.Bd3 h4 12.Ne4 Nd7 13.0–0 Qh5
6...Bg4
If 6...Bf5 7.Bd3 Bxd3 8.Qxd3 Qc7 9.Be3 e6 10.0–0–0 Nd7 11.Kb1 0–0–0 12.c4
7.Bf4

If 7.Be3 Na6 8.Bc4 e6 9.h3 Bh5÷; 7.Be2 Qc7 8.Be3 Nd7 9.Qd2
7...Qa5+ 8.c3

White could have swapped queens after 8.Qd2
8. ..Qf5 9.Bg3 Bxf3

Black could have developed his pieces instead of going in for exchanges . He had options like 9. ..Nd7 or 9. ..Qe6+
10.gxf3

Once again making it clear that he is not interested in exchanging queens
10. ..Bh6
Still 10. ..Nd7 was better
11.Bd3

Better is 11.Qb3 b6  12.Bc4
11. ..Qe6+ 12.Kf1 Qh3+ 13.Kg1 Nd7 14.Qb3 Nb6 15.Re1

White should have played 15. ..a4
15. ..e6. After keeping the King and rook sort of imprisoned, Black should have looked at ways to keep the attack going and tried 15. ..Rg8

16.a4. White could have enhanced his advantage with 16.c4 Rg8  17.c5 Nd5  18.Qb7
16. ..0–0

This is a mistake by Black. He should have castled on the queen side, 16…0-0-0  17.a5 Nd5  18.a6 b6 to keep the position equal

17.Re4 Bg5 18.Qd1
Difficult to understand why he retreated the queen. White should have continued 18.a5 Nd5  19.c4 Ne7

18. ..f5. Another mistake! If 18...Qh5 19.Rg4 f5 20.h4 fxg4 21.fxg4 Qh6 22.hxg5 Qxg5 23.Bxh7+ Kh8 24.Bf5+ Kg8 25.Be5 f6 26.Bxe6+ Kg7 27.f4 Qg6 28.Bf5 Qe8 29.Rh7+ Kg8 30.Qb3+ Nd5 31.Qxb7 with advantage for White.