Week 53: the Pirc Defense Classical Variation went 1–4

Week 53, January 6 to 12, 2025, looks flat from far away: 27 rapid games, 13 wins and 14 losses, rating 1227 → 1238 (+11). Up close it was two different weeks glued together. With White I went 9–4. With Black I went 4–10. And the opening I played most with Black, what Chess.com labels the Pirc Defense Classical Variation, went 1–4. This post is mostly about why.

The week in numbers

The rating line had one nice bump: four wins in a row on January 10 and 11 (games 1291 to 1294) took me to 1262, my highest rating so far. Then the last three games of the week were all losses, two of them with Black, and I finished at 1238. My opponents averaged 1248, and 20 of the 27 had a higher rating than mine (I went 6–14 against them).

The worst number of the week is not about openings. Six of my 14 losses came from positions where my winning chance had been 80% or more: games 1272, 1278, 1279, 1284, 1290 and 1296. Two of them, 1272 and 1296, ended on time. In both, by the time my clock ran out, the engine already had me lost; the clock just made it official.

The Pirc Defense Classical Variation, game by game

Five games, one win:

The pattern is clear when they sit together: each loss had at least one huge blunder before move 22, and in game 1295 it came on move 8. Game 1284 hurts most, because I was winning (−5.84 for Black) and threw it away in one move. Adding the other Pirc lines (a Geller System, a Main Line and a plain Pirc), all my Pirc games this week went 2–6.

Two positions from the week

Game 1271: the knight that was blocking a bishop

The week's first game was a Pirc, Geller System with Black against batcht (1304) (game on Chess.com). The position was close to equal, +0.56 for White.

r . . . . r k .
p p . n . p b p
. q p p . n p .
. . . . p . B .
. . . . P . . .
P . N P . Q . P
B P P . . P P .
. R . . . R K .

Nh5 looks active: the knight heads towards f4. But the knight on f6 was also blocking the diagonal from White's bishop on g5. After Nh5, the engine's reply is Be7, a bishop move close to my king that attacks my undefended pawn on d6 and my rook on f8 at the same time, a double attack. The evaluation went from +0.56 to +2.55. In the game my opponent played exactly 13.Be7, I answered 13...Rfe8 (another blunder), and 14.Bxf7+ ended it; the game was marked abandoned. The engine's quiet a5 kept everything together.

Game 1272: missing a double attack of my own

Later that day, with White against VasuGupta123 (1257) in a Queen's Pawn Opening, Zukertort Chigorin Variation (game link), I had the edge, +1.26. Black's bishop had gone deep into my position on d3.

r r . . . . k .
. . p q . p p p
p . p b p . . .
. . . p . . . .
Q . . P . P P .
. . P b P N . R
P P . N . . P .
. . K R . . . .

Ne5 attacks two undefended black pieces, the bishop on d3 and the queen on d7. I played b4 instead, pushing one of the pawns next to my own king, and the engine's answer is 21...a5, attacking it at once. The evaluation went from +1.26 to −3.42. This game then turned into a roller coaster: I was back above +5 several times and blundered seven times in total, the last one, 49.Kb2, with 45 seconds left. My flag fell a few moves later in a position the engine scored as mate for Black.

(The third key moment, game 1273 against TomasovSvenson (1233), was another missed capture with tempo: 25.Nxd7 traded my knight for a bishop, when 25.dxe5 would have attacked the black queen. +4.57 became −1.97, though I won that one on time.)

The lesson of the week

Game 1271 taught me something specific to my Black setups. In the Pirc, my knight on f6 doesn't just attack e4; it also blocks a diagonal towards my own position. Every time I move that knight, I need to check which white piece suddenly sees further. More generally, the Pirc Classical losses show that my problem with Black wasn't the late middlegame or the clock. It was one loose move in the first twenty-one, after which I spent the rest of the game defending. With White that didn't happen nearly as often. My plan for the next weeks: fewer "active" knight jumps in the opening, and a blunder check on every move until move 20.

All games this week

The week before: week 52. The week after: week 54, the big jump to 1300. Every week is listed on the journey page. To get the same game-by-game breakdown for your own openings, see AI chess analysis with Chess Coach.