C18 French: 3.Nc3 Bb4: Main line: 7.h4 and 7.Qg4 (1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 Qa5 7.Bd2 c4)

The games that I have finished lately at Chess.com will be added to the blog tomorrow including the 400th Online Chess game I have played there. Unless more games finish there before I make my post tomorrow, all the correspondence games I have played there are then published in this blog, well long enough games anyway. Friday I will post my latest games from GameKnot and Red Hot Pawn if more games do not end in those sites before then that is. The game below was played in the first round of the Maximum ! tournament that is held at Chess.com. It is named like that because the tournament uses the maximum thinking time available in Online Chess games at Chess.com which has a 14 day per move time limit. I am currently on eight place in group #4 and I have gathered 10 wins, 3 draws and 4 losses in the 17 games I have finished so far. There are five games still left for me to finish and if I happen to win them all, I will end up on third place in this group. That would also mean that I would advance to the second round. If there is a tournament where I would not like to advance to the next round, it would be this one. The thinking times are a bit too long, so I will forget what I was thinking about the last time I had to move in one of my games that have this 14 days per move time limit. My memory of the positions does differ from position to position though, it depends on how long I have actually used time to think about the current position on the board. I have added one mate in one, two mate in three, one mate in five and one mate in six puzzle today. Until tomorrow, my fellow chess enthusiasts!

[Event "Maximum ! - Round 1"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2014.09.11"] [Round "?"] [White "minotauro79"] [Black "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Result "0-1"] [ECO "C18"] [WhiteElo "1712"] [BlackElo "1945"] [Annotator "Tactical Analysis 2.10 (30s), TV"] [PlyCount "56"] [EventDate "2014.??.??"] {[%evp 13,56,0,50,43,51,22,37,26,32,28,35,28,53,37,61,44,50,45,43,29,27,0,0, -112,-109,-116,-111,-145,-150,-451,-424,-450,-436,-451,-416,-435,-379,-1075, -1060,-1324,-1311,-29983,-1190,-2546,-2540]} 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4 4. e5 c5 5. a3 Bxc3+ 6. bxc3 {C18 French Defense: Winawer Variation, Advance Variation #2} Qa5 7. Bd2 c4 {0.50/26 C18 French: 3.Nc3 Bb4: Main line: 7.h4 and 7.Qg4} ({Black should try} 7... Qa4 $11 {0.00/26}) 8. Qg4 $14 Kf8 9. Nf3 ( 9. Be2 Ne7 10. h4 h6 11. Nh3 Bd7 12. O-O Ba4 13. Rfc1 Qd8 14. Nf4 Nf5 15. g3 Ke7 16. Nh5 Rg8 17. Rab1 b6 18. Qh3 Kd7 19. Bg4 Ne7 20. f4 Kc7 21. Kh2 Nd7 22. Qg2 g6 23. Nf6 Nxf6 {Lokendra,R (1447)-Utkarsh,A (1586) New Delhi 2018 0-1 (66) }) 9... Ne7 $146 (9... Qa4 10. Rc1 Nc6 11. Be2 Nge7 12. O-O Nf5 13. Qh5 Qxa3 14. g4 Nfe7 15. Ng5 Nd8 16. f4 Kg8 17. Rf3 Qa4 18. Nh3 a5 19. f5 exf5 20. gxf5 Bxf5 21. Rxf5 g6 22. Rg5 b5 23. Qf3 Ra6 24. Nf4 {Bolado Saez,S (2367) -Bellipanni,P (2166) Malaga 2008 1-0}) 10. Be2 {White is slightly better.} Bd7 11. O-O Ba4 12. Rfc1 Na6 13. Ra2 Nc7 14. Qf4 h6 15. Ne1 Kg8 16. Bh5 Rf8 17. Qg3 Nf5 18. Qh3 {-1.12/29} (18. Qf4 $11 {0.00/32}) {[%tqu "En","","","","f5d4","", 10]} 18... Nxd4 $1 $17 {[%mdl 512]} 19. Qe3 (19. cxd4 Qxd2) 19... Nf5 20. Qf4 g6 $36 {[%mdl 2048] Black is really pushing.} 21. Qg4 $2 {-4.51/25 [#]} (21. Bg4 $17 {-1.50/27 is a better chance.}) 21... Kh7 {[%mdl 32]} 22. Bxg6+ fxg6 23. Nf3 Qc5 24. h4 Nb5 25. Bxh6 $2 {-10.75/26 [#]} (25. Rb1 {-3.79/27}) 25... Kxh6 $19 26. Qg5+ Kg7 27. g4 Ne7 {-11.90/27} (27... Nxh4 $142 {-#17/24} 28. Qf6+ Rxf6 29. exf6+ Kxf6 30. g5+ Kg7 31. Nd4 Nxd4 32. Re1 Nhf3+ 33. Kf1 Rh1+ 34. Kg2 Rh2+ 35. Kg3 Qd6+ 36. Re5 Qxe5+ 37. Kg4 Qxg5#) 28. h5 Rxf3 {Accuracy: White = 37%, Black = 56%.} 0-1