B98 Sicilian Najdorf: 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7, sidelines (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7 8.Qf3 Nc6 9.O-O-O Qc7 10.Nxc6 Qxc6)

I have tried to change my boring opening play in the recent years to something more interesting but I may have not succeeded in that all that well. I just quite easily revert back to some boring line that I played hundreds of times and the fear of losing a game keeps me from trying something new. I should have learned in all the years that I have played chess that I will lose games regardless of what opening I play. Maybe only recently I have tried to expand my knowledge by playing different openings on different sites, this refers mostly to sites where I play correspondence chess, in one site I play only 1.e4 as white, the other I play only 1.d4 and in the other sites I only play either 1.Nf3 or 1.c4. Also my responses to these moves differ from site to site in order to try as many different openings as possible simultaneously to maybe find one that I would like and continue playing it more in the future.

In this game there ought to be a little training question, not sure how it plays out in the game publishing tool but in the pgn-file it should work if it doesn't please let me know in the comments. The training question was created by Deep Fritz 14. By the way, the games that show up in the comments are taken from the reference database I am using which is the Big Database 2014 which I try to keep updated every week if I remember to do it. Also the example games are not always from best possible games in terms of quality since the players involved might be quite low rated. Maybe if I had time to make sure all the players in my reference database were rated over 2400, for example, I could more easily rely on the lines taken from the database.

[Event "Let's Play!"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2012.01.29"] [Round "?"] [White "AccLawProf"] [Black "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "B98"] [WhiteElo "2017"] [BlackElo "1864"] [Annotator "Tactical Analysis 2.10 (5s), TV"] [PlyCount "57"] [EventDate "2012.??.??"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Bg5 e6 7. f4 Be7 { B98 Sicilian Defense: Najdorf Variation} (7... Qc7 8. Qf3 Be7 9. O-O-O { 1-0 (28) Mar,F-Ievlev,Y Dos Hermanas 2004}) 8. Qf3 Nc6 9. O-O-O Qc7 10. Nxc6 Qxc6 {B98 Sicilian Najdorf: 6.Bg5 e6 7.f4 Be7, sidelines} 11. Qg3 Bd7 {1.08/22} (11... Nh5 $14 {0.54/20} 12. Qf3 Nf6) 12. e5 $16 dxe5 13. fxe5 {White is better.} Nh5 14. Qh4 $1 Bxg5+ {2.06/18} (14... f6 $16 {1.30/18 is a better defense.}) 15. Qxg5 $18 g6 16. Be2 Ng7 17. Bf3 Qc7 18. Ne4 $1 {[#] Black must now prevent Nf6+.} Kf8 $146 (18... Ba4 19. Nd6+ Kf8 20. Be4 Nf5 21. Rhf1 Qe7 22. Qf4 Bc6 23. g4 Bxe4 24. Nxe4 Ng7 25. Ng5 Ke8 26. Nxf7 Rf8 27. Nd6+ Kd7 28. Nf5+ {1-0 (28) Mar,F-Ievlev,Y Dos Hermanas 2004}) 19. Nf6 $40 {White goes for the king.} Ba4 20. Rd2 {Qh4 is the strong threat.} Nf5 {2.78/17} (20... h5 $16 {1.56/18} 21. Qf4 Qa5 22. Bxb7 Rb8) 21. Rhd1 $2 {1.01/16} (21. g4 $18 {2.78/17 has better winning chances.} Nd4 22. Qh6+ Ke7 23. Qg5) 21... h6 {2.50/19} ( 21... Rc8 $16 {1.01/16}) 22. Qf4 Bc6 $2 {3.92/13} (22... Bb5 {2.20/18 was necessary.} 23. a4 Kg7 24. axb5 axb5) 23. Bxc6 Qxc6 24. g4 Nh4 $2 {16.85/12} ( 24... b5 {3.59/17} 25. gxf5 exf5) 25. Rd7 {[#] White wants to mate with Rd8+.} Rc8 26. c3 {Rd8+ would kill now.} Qf3 27. Rxf7+ $1 {White mates.} Kxf7 28. Rd7+ Kf8 29. Qb4+ {Accuracy: White = 60%, Black = 23%.} 1-0