This game was played in a team match called Khamûl the Nazgûl. The match is played on 17 boards between Lord Of The Rings and Cafe Jasmin - Open 24/7. I am playing on board 3 for Lord Of The Rings. This has been a quite one-sided match because the current score in the match is 22 - 7 in favor of Lord Of The Rings. Then again we did have higher rated players on most boards, so this is pretty much the expected outcome. However, there have been some upsets too to make it more interesting. This will be quite convincing victory for us as soon as all the games are finished.
The move 3...h6 is not even considered theory in all sources, but Chess.com's opening explorer does recognise this opening variation. I remember vaguely playing that h6 move when I was still relatively new to chess, but later on I started playing 3...Bc5 and I have played it many times over the years. The move 3...h6 does stop any intrusion by a knight or a bishop, for instance, but it also feels a bit unnecessary. I think the two main moves here are 3...Bc5 and 3...Nf6, both of which I would prefer over h6. I think I have also played 3...Be7, which is probably also a better alternative than h6. Basically I am saying that I do not like that move. Because I think that my opponent's third move is a mistake, which takes a bit time off from development, I thought that I should maybe play as aggressively as possible and try to finish my development as soon as possible. Therefore I started with 4.d4. That move does two things, it opens up a diagonal for my dark-squared bishop and it also has a threat to win a pawn with dxe5 attached to it. I think that exd4 was the correct way to answer d4, but after I took back with the knight, my opponent went a bit astray in my opinion. He took on d4 the second time with the knight and after I recaptured with the queen, I had two pieces developed while my opponent did not have any. I also have the center under my control and I think these things should give me a clear advantage in the position. I was not winning just yet, but the position seemed very promising.
Nikdelhossein replied to 6.Qxd4 with 6...Nf6, which is probably a decent move in the position. I continued with O-O and then my opponent played Be7, which is understandable move because he wants to castle as soon as possible and had I just allowed him to castle, he might have been able to survive better. I played 8.e5 in order to disrupt those castling plans and kick the knight to a bad square. My opponent should have moved the knight because after 8...c5, the fate of the knight is sealed and it will be lost. This is because of the move 9.Qf4, which pins the knight to the f7-square. Had the knight moved, I would have taken on f7 with the queen ending the game immediately because of checkmate. Nikdelhossein tried the desperate 9...g5, but after 10.Qf3, I will be able to win a piece. 10...d5 does not help because of the following continuation 11.exf6 dxc4 12.fxe7. This meant that I was already in a winning position after my opponent blundered with 8...c5. I may not have played the rest of the game perfectly, but well enough to secure the win.
On a completely unrelated note, I realized today that I am at least on four different sites at my peak rating! While my games at Chess.com have not been able to produce a new peak in Daily chess since January, 2009, I am at my peak at Red Hot Pawn with a rating of 1969, at ChessRex with a rating of 1755, at GameKnot with a rating of 1810 and maybe most importantly got my FICS standard rating to 2204 on April 16th, 2016!! The last one is special because it broke my previous online rating peak that used to belong to the rating I had achieved at Queen Alice Internet Chess Club. It is now the highest rating that I have been able to get on any site. I am the first one to admit though that there is some air in that rating and that it does not really portray my true skill level. However, the way that the ratings are calculated at the Free Internet Chess Server, it has made this possible. Then again I was very close to losing my last game there and I thought many times during the game, why did I made the challenge as a rated game... Had I lost that game, I would have probably lost a few hundred points I think. Even drawing that game would have drastically dropped my rating. Now I must go back to making moves in my correspondence games and if I have some time left today, I should also prepare for an important over the board game that I play tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment