Chess960 SP17

These two short games were played in a team match called FRIENDS OF CHESS 960 vs Chess960 RandomChess at Chess.com. The match is played on 22 boards between Friends of Chess and Chess960 RandomChess. I played on board 5 for Chess960 RandomChess. If my memory serves me right, this was the first time that I played in a match for Chess960 RandomChess. I am glad that I won both of my games, but the way these two wins came is not to my liking. These were timeout wins, caused by the fact that my opponent had the cheater badge next to his username. I am not sure how Chess.com has determined that my opponent has cheated, but I do not think that he cheated in these two games. The current score in the match is 6 - 19 in favor of Chess960 RandomChess. Even though the win is still not secured, the likelihood that we will win the match with ease should be quite high if the games that have already finished give any indication to the way this match is going to end. Admittedly predicting the final score to be in our favor might be a bit too premature.

I think this starting position is quite a nice one because it would seem that the development of the different pieces should be easy. Therefore I think that one could castle on either side though castling short is of course much easier. Both players start the game by opening diagonals for their bishops on d1 and d8. Then my opponent played 2.b3 and the bishop on the long diagonal is opened up. It also immediately attacks my pawn on e5, which I protect with the somewhat clumsy looking Bf6. My plan is to later on play g6 and put the bishop on g7. Maybe after the bishop has relocated itself to g7, I could play my knight to f6 depending on the situation on the board. I do not have time to play the g6, Bg7, Nf6 idea because JosephHmingsanga plays Nf3 increasing the pressure on the e5-pawn, which I now need to protect. I chose to protect the pawn by playing Nc6. It seems much better than playing d6, which would make the development of my knight on e8 a little bit more difficult. The next few moves are spent on logical developing moves until I play the move 8...Nf6. While my move does not lose the game, it was much better to play Qd8, for instance. The remainder of the game does not offer much for either player because my opponent did not play the correct reply to 8...Nf6, which would have been 9.d4. I have added one mate in one, two mate in three and two mate in four puzzles today.

Game number two. The game below started with the same first moves as my other encounter with JosephHmingsanga, but already on my second move I differ from the other game by playing Nf3. We end up in a Philidor Defense like position with the exception that the pieces behind the pawns are all messed up, except for the h-rooks and the b-knights. If this were a normal Philidor Defense position, I would continue with 3.d4, but as this is chess960, I played 3.b3 instead and opened up the long diagonal for my bishop. I think the first move that really does not look like a good idea to me is 4...c6. The reason for this is that it makes the bishop on a8 look more like a pawn than a bishop and it also occupies the square where I would like to place my knight if I were playing with the black pieces that is. It is probably not as bad of a move as I make it sound like, but it just does not seem right to me. The first mistake of the game is 5...exd4, which gives my knight a nice square on d4 from which it can jump to f5 and start to be a menace on the kingside. I do get my knight on the excellent square f5 on move 7, after which my opponent makes what should have been the losing move. For some reason I did not see far enough at this point and did not see the forced mate starting with 8.Qg5 instead of the game continuation. I am able to maintain my advantage until the end but I could have ended the game sooner with correct play.