Chess960 SP100

For the last post of the week I share a chess960 game that was played at lichess.org on March 6th, 2016. Like usual, the time control for this game was 10 minutes with a 10 second increment. For some reason I have really liked to play with that time control at lichess. Recent results also show that this time control has been very successful for me, because I have won 10 games in a row at lichess. Two of those were really short, so 8 proper games were included in those 10 games. Then again, the rating difference between me and my opponents has been clearly in my favor during this win streak, so it is not that amazing of a result. This is also my latest game from lichess. Funnily enough, this is my 100th chess960 game to appear in the blog, so convenient that the starting position is also 100. In those 100 games I have 66 wins, 11 draws and 23 losses.

This game starts with both players wanting to take the center of the board in control. Already on move three my opponent makes a questionable decision. Mjbelieve plays e5, which sacrifices the e-pawn for nothing in my opinion. After three moves I have developed a knight and a bishop while my opponent has not moved any of his or her pieces. Mjbelieve does have open file for the rook and open diagonal for the bishop. Both pieces can, of course, influence the game from their starting squares as well. Maybe it is actually then wrong to say that mjbelieve has not developed any pieces by move 3. The idea that a piece must be moved before it can take part in the game may be slightly hindering me when I play chess960. I am just so accustomed to certain opening principles that when someone does not play what I could call normal moves, I tend to be in trouble. Not all the time, because I am able to take advantage of some of the unconventional moves that my opponents plays.

On move four my opponent plays Be4 with the threat of removing the defender of my bishop on e5 by playing Bxc6 in the next move if I do not stop that idea. I was awake at the time, so I was able to see the threat and therefore moved my bishop to f6. Both players keep making natural looking moves, at least to my eyes, but on move 7 I am not liking my position that much even though I am a pawn up in material. My problem piece is the awkwardly placed bishop on f6. Even though I noticed that 8.Nd5 is rather annoying move, I still played 7...Ng6 and allowed that move to be played. This was because I saw that I should be able to handle 8.Nd5 with 8...Qc8. Then mjbelieve played a move that I had not expected, 9.Bxg6. I had expected 9.Nxf6+ to which I would have probably replied with 9...exf6 and tried to keep my pawn structure as good as possible. I took on g6 with the f-pawn because I thought that after castling short, my rook would be on the half open f-file. I also considered hxg6, which would activate my rook on the h-file. I honestly was not sure which was the better move, but after fxg6 I could have also repaired my pawn structure had mjbelieve taken on f6 with the knight next. I guess the possibility to undouble pawns made me lean on fxg6 over hxg6.

When mjbelieve does play Nxf6, I decided not to undouble the pawns, but instead keep the f-file open for the rook. I thought that it would be the more aggressive way to play and the one with better winning chances. However, the move 13.Bg5 does demonstrate that White gets some play after Rxf6. When mjbelieve played 14.Ne4 I kind of regretted my decision to play 12...Rxf6. After the two aggressive moves from my opponent, mjbelieve's initiative stops and I start to be the one who has the iniative. I was fairly confident that I can win the game when my opponent failed to react to my move 15...Ne5 in a proper manner. Tactical idea won me a second pawn and after my opponent also blundered on the next move with 17.Rd1, the game ended shortly after that. I have added one analysed game to the following posts: C03 French Defense: Tarrasch Variation, C42 Russian Game: Classical Attack, E20 Nimzo-Indian Defense: General and C45 Scotch Game: Schmidt Variation. I have also added two mate in two, one mate in three and two mate in four puzzles today. Until Monday, my fellow chess960 and chess enthusiasts!