Chess960 SP499

The game below was played in a team match called March game 32. The match is in progress at Chess.com and it consists of 10 boards. It is played between Kuda Hitam chess club and Kopaonik. I played on board 6 for Kopaonik and in addition to this draw, I lost my other game against Nathan_echo. That other game will be posted at some point, possible on Thursday this week if I have time to analyse it before then. The current score in the match is 5.5 - 5.5, so the match can still go either way. I am not happy of the way I performed in this match, but Nathan_echo was a bit higher rated than me and seems to have played more chess960 games than me, so I may not feel that bad about my result. Regardless of that I should be able to make better moves than I did in both of my games against Nathan_echo.

I played 1.e4 because it fights for the control of the important center squares. I also want to plant my f-knight behind the e-pawn to e3 where it can help secure squares like d5 and f5. I prioritise the development of the kingside pieces first because I want to castle there. My opponent replied with 1...b5, which is an interesting move that makes it a bit awkward to protect my e-pawn. Ideally I would like to play 2.Nc3 here to protect the pawn, but it would just get replied with 2...b4, which would drive the knight away. Because 2.Nc3 is not an option, I thought of other ways to defend the pawn. I played 2.g3 in order to both defend the pawn and open the long diagonal for my bishop. Nathan_echo continues playing moves that I would not play when he goes for the move 2...Qa6. It is actually a good move that both threatens to take on a2 with the queen and also Bxe4 is now available for him. I played the passive 3.a3 which is probably not the best move, but as I only saw the threat to my a-pawn and thought that I need to play a3 anyway in order to develop my knight to c3 safely without the need to worry about b4 kicking the knight away, I ended up playing that move, but 3.b4 is a better alternative. My move turned out to be ok, since Nathan_echo played the inaccurate b4 as a reply. I have a small advantage after that according to Stockfish 7 64 POPCNT. Interestingly enough, the engine thinks that 4...Rxb4 is the biggest mistake of the game during those first four moves. I think it is a natural reply to my move, it not only captures the pawn back but also adds pressure to the e4-pawn. This might be one of those times where I disagree with the engine. I do not really see why White should be favored here. I felt that my position is not so comfortable to play during the game. I think my pieces are not doing much in comparison with Nathan_echo's pieces. Apparently I was on the better side of things up to move 10.Qd2. After that the game is basically drawn by force by my opponent since I can't really do anything other than move my king back and forth between g1 and g2 because other moves lose at this point. Apparently my positional understanding is not always correct because during the game I thought that I was on the worse side most of the game and I was surprised that Nathan_echo went for the draw. I was ok with that draw as he was higher rated than me and because of the way the game had went at least to my understanding that is. I have added one analysed game to the following posts: E01 Catalan Opening: Closed Variation, C44 Scotch Game: Scotch Gambit, A36 English Opening: Symmetrical Variation. Symmetrical Variation and A15 English Opening: Anglo-Indian Defense. Mikenas-Carls Variation. I have also added one mate in two, three mate in three and one mate in four puzzle.

Game number two. The game below is my other game from the match called March game 32. The match is still even, the score has changed a little and now the score is 6.5 - 6.5. There are still seven games left to finish in the match and there is no certainty yet, how those games will end. Both of these games started at the same time, so I did not have the option of getting some understanding of the way my opponent plays this particular starting position, but instead had to see it unfold on both boards about the same time. Nathan_echo had a similar opening strategy on both games and unfortunately for me, so did I. The move 1.g3 is something that I would see myself starting with as it opens up the long diagonal for the bishop. I replied with 1...e5, which might not be such a good idea because I ran into some problems quite quickly. The move itself is okay, but the way I handled the game afterwards made the pawn on e5 the center of my problems. I think I should have played 1...g6 instead and I would have been able to get an easier position to play. Nathan_echo continued with 2.b4, which to me seems like a move that I would avoid playing, but it is probably good in this position. It grabs some space on the queenside, opens up the long diagonal for the bishop, allows a rook lift later on and makes it possible for the queen to develop itself. It is hard to do more than that in one move. The game continues quite logically, I played g6 in order to protect my pawn on e5, then my opponent increased the pressure on the pawn by playing 3.f4, which I again have to defend against, so I played 3...d6. I started to really dislike the way that I had played so far and knew that there had gone something wrong.

Stockfish may consider the position after 4...dxe5 equal, but I still think that White should be favored here. Maybe not by much, but it is definitely easier to play this position with the white pieces in my opinion. Nathan_echo continued by developing his queen to a3 with a tempo. I replied with a6 and simply defended the pawn. I did not see any other alternative way to respond to the threat. My opponent continued with the aggressive approach to the game and played 6.b5. That is a bit inaccurate move and maybe 6.e4 was a better option. That does not matter all that much because I played the horrible 7...Qe6, which was the game losing move. Later on in the game I thought that I would get some play with 21...Nh3+, but it was not enough to turn things around.