Day 20 / 345 to go

Remember that I was talking about including prophylaxis into my PAT?  My mind was circling around prophylaxis and Wu-Wei and how to include them into my thinking and analysis. Currently, I guess they are best placed in the initial step: I don´t want them to control and direct too much of my thinking or directly influence my candidate moves. Hence, asking myself whether the position - in general - fullfills the characteristics of a Wu-Wei position or allows me to focus on prophylaxis right at the beginning of the thought process currently seems to be the most appropriate place...

Tonight, I tried to practise my middlegame understanding. But it seems like I was simply too tired: I failed on three positions and decided to stop it for today. Interestingly, I didn´t apply my PAT properly: So being tired influences directly my willpower to really go for the PAT and instead trying to take a shortcut by finding a move without it. The following position summarizes what it´s (currently) all a about (at least for me):

In good mental shape and applying the PAT - I am convinced I would have seen the correct move for White (simply because it is pretty obvious that Black has only one):

(But without it, I focused way to much on the kingside and how to actively approach it. Instead, I should have paid maximum attention on Black´s only decent move, actually, his only active piece - and how I can prevent it: b4!)

Later on, I will do some endgame basics. Today is not the day for heavy endgame puzzles!