I don't know the openings all that well but maybe after I have done enough studying them for these blog posts, I will play them better... That is the hope anyway and hopefully readers will find my posts in some way useful as well. The games so far that I have put here are from my ICC five minute pool games but I will post in the future also probably games from other places as well, for example, some of my correspondence chess games from various sites.
Even though this was a five minute game, the first mistake of note was played on move 17, which just shows that even lower rated players can play quite well for some time with fast time controls. The diagram below shows the situation at the board after my 17th move e5. Vicwill played the horrible 17...Nh5 in reply, which placed the knight on a square from which it can't go anywhere safely. I should have played 18.Be3, but instead I thought that the bishop needed to stay on the h2-b8 diagonal and backed up with my bishop to h2. Had I played 18.Be3, it would have attacked the queen on b6, which in turn would have given me time to perhaps trap the knight on h5. However, had I played g4 after Be3, then the pawn cover in front of my king would have been very much weakened and I am not sure it would be worth it to do so just to trap the knight.
The game then continued roughly evenly up to the move 20.Qxc4. The diagram position is taken after my 20th move. In that position vicwill made another horrible move 20...Qxb2. Taking the pawn on b2 was not a good idea because it allowed me to play 21.g4 and trap the knight on h5. I did not go for the material because I was probably worried a bit too much for weakening the pawn cover in front of my king. I played 21.a4 instead and saved my pawn on the a-file. It was an awful move that turned the tables because my opponent would have been able to win the pawn on e5, so that my opponent would be up two pawns.
Winning the second pawn with 21...dxe5 was probably the best idea for my opponent to take the pawn and gain a clear advantage, but also the moves 21...Qb4 and 21...Bxe5 would have been good alternatives. All three moves should give vicwill a clear advantage. For some reason vicwill decided not to win a pawn from e5 and played 21...d5, which only attacked my queen and reached an equal position. Maybe the move d5 was designed as a trap for me. Had I taken the pawn on c6, then Rfc8 or Rac8 and my knight on c3 would be lost. I saw the problem with Qxc6, so I moved my queen to d3. It was not the best square for the queen, d4 was the right square for the queen. The next diagram shows the situation at the board after my 22nd move Qd3.
Vicwill played 22...Bh8 in order to allow the knight from h5 to have one safe square to which it could go. It was a blunder that turned the tables once again. I was able to take the advantage of my opponent's sloppy move and moved my rook to b1. It forced the queen to go to a3 and then I had the very nice move Nxd5! It wins at least a pawn because it is a discovered attack on the undefended queen on a3, so vicwill could not have taken the knight with the pawn because it would be replied with Qxa3 and the game would be lost for my opponent. If vicwill would take the queen on d3, then I would play Nxe7+ and then cxd3 and then I would be up a pawn. Therefore Qc5 would be vicwill's best reply to Nxd5. I missed my chance and played 24.Rb6?? Vicwill could have replied with 24...Qc5 and I would have been clearly worse. Vicwill did not protect the pawn on c6 at all, instead my opponent played 24...e6. I took my chance to get material equality and took the pawn on c6. After that the position was even again. In reply vicwill made a move so horrible that it could have meant a loss for my opponent, had my answer to it being the correct one. It may not seem at first that it matters which rook to place to c8, but there is a significant difference. The move played in the game, 25...Rac8, would have allowed me to play 26.Nxd5 and win material. Had my opponent played the other rook to c8, I could not have played 26.Nxd5, because of the following line 26...Qxd3 27.Ne7+ Kf8 and I would lose material.
The time control in this game probably had some effect to the inaccurate moves and may have caused me not to see the move 26.Nxd5. I played 26.Qb5 probably because it does not require as much calculating as the move 26.Nxd5. The safer move unfortunately also threw away the possibility for me to win the game and I had to accept an even position. The balance did not last long, my 29th move that was played in the diagram position below put me in some trouble. I took the pawn on a5 and probably thought that I can get something done with my pawn on the a-file. It was more important for me to prevent the rook from coming to the second rank with Rxc2. The rook on c2 would attack the knight on e2 and after it moves, the rook could go to c4 perhaps and I would lose another pawn on a4.
My opponent had other plans in mind, however, vicwill played 29...Qc5 and immediately turned the tables again. From a clearly favorable position vicwill went to a position where my opponent was worse. The game continued with me taking the queen on c5 and vicwill then took back with the rook obviously. I replied to that with the move 31.c3, protecting my pawn and taking better control over the square d4. After my 31st move it should be clear why 29...Qc5 was so bad move. It only helped me to keep my material advantage. With queens on the board and my opponent's rook wreaking havoc on the second rank, the game would have been much more difficult for me. In the continuation where the rook took on c2, I would have likely lost the a-pawn and maybe even the e-pawn at some point. The last option might have been less likely to happen, but I would have had at least two pawns less than on the game continuation. To 31.c3 vicwill answered with 31...d4, which was a huge blunder that could have lost the game. I continued correctly with the move 32.cxd4 and then my opponent played 32...Rc2 a little bit too late as it would have been much more impactful a couple of moves earlier. The next diagram shows the situation on the board after 32...Rc2.
I wanted to keep everything as well defended as possible, so I played 33.Re1. It is a really passive move that allows my opponent to be more active and therefore get good compensation for the material. Vicwill replied with 33...Ra2 and I played 34.Nc3 because I thought that the pawn on a4 is more important than the pawn on d4. However, I could not protect the pawn on a4 as the move 34...Ra3 basically forced my knight away. I may have tried the move 35.Rc1, but then 35...Nxd4 with the threat of Rxc3 Rxc3 Ne2+ winning my knight and I do not like the position. Then again I may just reply to 35...Nxd4 with 36.Kf1 and the tactic does not work. After driving the knight away, my opponent took the pawn on a4 and it seemed that a draw would be the likely outcome of the game. A draw should have been indeed the outcome, but I tried too hard to win and made a huge blunder because of it. The next diagram is taken after the move 43...Kg6.
I unnecessarily weakened my position with the move 44.h4 and my path towards a loss had started. We played a few more moves, but I resigned after I had accidentally sacrificed my rook... At that point it was pointless to carry on with the game.
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