Chess960 SP63

This week starts with a chess960 game that I would have posted earlier if I had not faced some problems with it. It has usually been enough for me to change the variant from Chess960 to chess 960 in the pgn-file, but for some reason this game also required some other changes to the pgn-file before it was shown correctly in Chessbase 12 and Deep Fritz 14, the two programs I use to view and analyse my finished games. The problem with this particular game even made me consider other chess programs and even though I did find one that was able to show the game correctly without me changing the pgn-file, the analysis quality was not at the level I would like it to be and therefore I had to work on the pgn-file again to see if I could get it to work also on the aforementioned programs.

This game was played at lichess.org on January 15th, 2016. Before this game started, my rating was 1843 and oquzlar's rating was 1859. Unfortunately this has been the last time that I have faced a higher rated opponent at lichess. The reason for that might be simply the time controls I put in the challenge. People like to play much faster games than I do, especially those that are higher rated than me, so I usually play against lower rated players there. This game starts with both players pushing their g-pawn one square forward and by doing that they are activating their bishops on the h-file. I did notice this time that when I played g3, the bishop from h1 targets the undefended pawn on b7. When my opponent replied with the same idea, I decided not to take on b7, because then oquzlar just takes on b2 and it would have been a position that I do not like, so I developed my knight to c3 instead. My plan was to castle long and therefore I did not want to weaken my pawn structure on the queenside. Oquzlar defends the b-pawn by playing c6, which I do not like the looks of, but it is a decent move regardless. The reason why I do not like this move is that in my opinion the knight would belong on c6 instead of the pawn. I continued with 3.f4 opening the g1-a7 diagonal for my bishop. At this point I think that it should be easy to develop the remaining pieces and the opening part of the game has gone without problems. I think I am slightly better after 6 moves, but then on move seven I castle, even though I should have played e4, in order to stop the immediate d5. In the game continuation oquzlar gets to play 7...d5 and the position is about even. The center was a bit tied up, so I played h3 in order to play g4 and try to open lines in front of oquzlar's king.

Before I ended up playing g4, I moved both of my bishops out of the back rank, so that there would be room for my rooks to roam around. I was able to open the g-file and plant my rook on g1 and maybe have some play along that file. My immediate threat after 13.Rg1 is 14.Qxf5 because the pawn is pinned on g6 and can't take the queen. Oquzlar played 13...Bg7, which stops my idea for now anyway. Actually Stockfish does not like my position at this point in the game and thinks that Black is clearly better. Actually my positional downhill started with the move 12.gxf5 according to the engine, well I had been on the worse side a bit earlier, but the position had become equal again, before declining again. My difficulties continue up to the move 41...g3, after which I could have held the draw with accurate play. Around this time I was quite confident that I am going to lose, but wanted to continue the game to see what happens. It was a pity that I could not find the move 42.Re1 and I might have survived. I was not able to find it and I was crushed quite quickly after that. I have added one analysed game to these three posts today: A30 English Opening: Symmetrical Variation. General, C11 French Defense: Classical Variation. Delayed Exchange Variation and E12 Queen's Indian Defense: General. I have also added two mate in one, two mate in four and one mate in five puzzle.