Chess960 SP373

It is time again for some chess960 and this post contains two games when it is first published. Both of these games were played in a team match called 4.) 1/3/2016,Chess960, Happy New Year 2016=Sretna Nova 2016.Godina. It is played on 15 boards between MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου and ISK Crvena Zvezda. I played on board 7 for MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου. The current score in the match is 23 - 2 in favor of MY FRIENDS, International, Moji prijatelji&Φίλοι μου. There are only 5 games left in this very one-sided match and even if we lose them all, it would be only a small consolation for our opponents.

This game starts like the French Defense, but obviously the starting positon differs a bit from the usual. The moves e4 and d4 also open up diagonals for the bishops in this starting position like they do in chess. The difference being that the light-squared bishop starts from d1 instead of f1. Bishop starting from d1 is maybe slightly worse than the one that starts from f1, but there is probably not that big of a difference between the two. The first move that seems a bit off to me is 2...c6 because it may further restrict the scope of Black's light-squared bishop. The problem with how vogar1 has handled the first two moves is that it is quite difficult now to develop the black pieces to good squares, at least in my opinion. The knight from a8 would be most likely ideally placed on b6 but before it can go there, vogar1 would probably want to play b5, so that the light-squared bishop can be developed to a decent square. That is because I do not like its prospects on the c8-h3 diagonal because the pawn on e6 blocks its path. Maybe 2...d5 would have been a better try than 2...c6.

I am able to continue the game with logical developing moves while my opponent chooses a passive way to play. After 8...O-O-O vogar1 has catched up a bit on piece development, but honestly both vogar1's knights and the light-squared bishop seem bad pieces to me, when comparing them to their counterparts. I played 9.Qh2 in order to get my queen a bit more active as it goes to the h2-b8 diagonal and eyes on the undefended pawn on d6. The way vogar1 reacts to my threat makes his light-squared bishop an ever worse piece than it was before moving it to e8. I think vogar1 should have just played 9...d5 to which I would have probably played the inaccurate reply 10.exd5. Had the game actually proceeded in that way, the result of the game would have been much less obvious. 9...Be8 is probably the mistake that enabled me to win the game, though vogar1 makes a more concrete mistake on move 10 with Ng6, because that gives up the pawn on d6 for free. I am able to convert the advantage into a win on move 25 when vogar1 resigned seeing that he will loose too much material to offer any resistance or end up being mated. I have added one analysed game to the following posts: C41 Philidor Defense: Exchange Variation, C88 Spanish Game: Closed and C34 King's Gambit: Accepted. Fischer Defense. I have also added one mate in two, one mate in three and three mate in four puzzles today.

Game number two. In this game vogar1 had chances for a draw a lot longer than in our other game. I was not able to use my chances to take the advantage when I was first given the chance to do so. Only after the blunder 16.Nh3, I started to play accurately enough that I was able to keep the advantage the remainder of the moves. I was not sure about the best way to continue after 16.Nh3 and I was not really sure if I am going to win even though I certainly felt that I should be on the better side of things. Had my opponent not blundered with 23.f4, this game might still be in progress.