Chess960 SP391

The last post of the week features a game that was played in a team match called Total 960 vs Kopaonik. It is played on 85 boards and I am playing on board 19 for Kopaonik. The winner of the match has already been decided as the current score is 86.5 - 72.5 in favor of Total 960. The game below started with me pushing the e-pawn to e4 again prefering to take a presense in the center with a pawn instead of opening diagonals for my bishops. I could have just as well played 1.d4, I am not sure which one I prefer as both moves have their downsides. Maybe 1.g3 would have been also an option I would have gone for as my first move. My opponent replied with 1...g6 and it is somewhat annoying move because it stops me from playing b3 for awhile and getting my queen activated on the long diagonal. That being said, also 1.b3 might be something that I consider of playing in my future games in this or similar starting positions. I continued with 2.Nf3 because I want to play d4 and try to restrict the scope of the dark-squared bishop that resides in h8. My plan of playing d4 on my next move is halted by KingsBishop's reply b6, which opens the diagonal for his queen, which attacks the e4-pawn. At that moment I thought that my handling of the first moves might not have been the best. I played 3.d3 in order to protect e4 because there really is not a better way to protect that pawn, Nc3 might be answered with Bxc3 followed by queen taking on e4. On his third move KingsBishop played Bb7, which is not an ideal move, because it allows me to play 4.Bh6+ and trade the dark-squared bishops. That is true in case my opponent does not want to play 4...Ng7, which looks very bad and can't be recommended. After the trade of the bishops, the position is about even.

Maybe for the first time during this game, the position started to slightly favor me after my opponent castled on move six. Or it would have been favoring me, had I played 7.Ne5 in response to castles. I just played 7.g3 in order just to open the diagonal for the bishop. I was given the opportunity to play Ne5 again on the following turn, but again I did not see its benefits, so I played the more passive Nd2 instead. The game continued without any major mistakes up to my 25th move, which actually gives my opponent a clear advantage. I guess I was playing with too much of a risk, because KingsBishop could have played 25.Qh5+ and I would have been in bigger problems than in the game continuation. Admittedly I did not see Qh5+ possibility during the game or if I did, I did not see the danger that would have been related to it. The game started to look an awful lot like a draw to me after the trade of queens, but of course there was still some problems to be solved. I guess the king and pawn ending showed that I need to get more familiar with these kind of endings because I had chances to win this, had I played it correctly after the blunder 27...d5. I am a bit ashamed that I did not see the possibility to play 30.c4 or first play g4 and then c4 and be winning in that position. I should have even considered that move, but for some reason I did not and even was happy to get the draw after I offered it on move 31. If I were to make excuses for this sloppy ending, then I would mention that the time of day when I make moves in my correspondence games has been mostly a little bit before I go to sleep. It really is not the best time to do that but I do not see it changing all that much in the near future because other things in my life seem to take most of the day. I have added one analysed game to the following posts: B27 Sicilian Defense: Hyperaccelerated Pterodactyl, E24 Nimzo-Indian Defense: Saemisch Variation. Accelerated, D02 Queen Pawn Game: Symmetrical Variation. Pseudo-Catalan and C18 French Defense: Winawer Variation. Classical Variation. I have also added one mate in one, one mate in three and three mate in four puzzles today. Until Monday, my fellow chess960 and chess enthusiasts!

Game number two. This game is my other game against KingsBishop from the team match that is currently in progress between Total 960 and Kopaonik. The score in the match at the moment I type this is 91.5 - 72.5 in favor of Total 960. KingsBishop started the game with an immediate bishop activation 1.g3 to which I would consider the following moves as decent replies, 1...g6, 1...Nf6 or the move I played in the game 1...e5. KingsBishop continued with 2.b3, which opens the diagonal for the queen to attack my pawn on e5. I defended with 2...g6, opening the diagonal for my bishop on h8. Then my opponent put more pressure to the e5-pawn by playing Bb2. I replied with 3...d6 because I think it is the best way to defend the pawn. KingsBishop could have continued the pressure towards my e-pawn by playing 4.f4, which would have been annoying move to meet as I would have been forced to play f6 and that would have made my knight on e8 a very bad piece. It would seem then that somewhere during my first three moves I have made a mistake. Maybe the mistake was to play 1...e5. KingsBishop did not go for 4.f4, but instead he played 4.Nc3, which I was happier to see because I was able to develop my pieces more freely. On his 5th move KingsBishop played a wierd looking move Ng2, but I guess the idea of playing it to e3 later on is a decent plan. I replied with 5...Bc6 and therefore moved my bishop for the second time. The idea behind the bishop maneuver was that I could then play b6 safely and get my queen involved in the game.

I think both players continued to play reasonable moves up to my move 7...b6. The reply 8.Ng4 does threaten Nh6, but as I would have likely played Bg7 anyway, KingsBishop's 8th move might be a bit waste of time. Then on move 10, he played a mysterious looking move f3, the point of which I am not sure about. In the game continuation it seems like a waste of a move. Despite the difficult start to the game, I think I was able to get to a good position and I thought that after 19.f4, I am on the better side of the board. However, I was not sure about the right plan at this point. I wanted to reroute my knight to e3 via c7 and d5 and I thought that if I can manage that I would be in a really promising position. The problem was that the knight maneuver took a lot of time. It took maybe a bit too long because I think I made game losing decisions before the knight could actually jump to e3. I think starting from 24...Qf3 I started to follow the wrong idea. The idea was to put pressure on the knight that can't move from e2. The better way to do that would have been to double rooks on the e-file. I could have also moved the queen somewhere and continued with plan of placing my knight to e3. While I think that 24...Qf3 was a bad move, it does not compare to my next move 25...Qg4, which is even worse. Placing my queen there meant that it was out of play for the rest of the game and the biggest reason I lost this game. The queen stayed pretty much trapped in the kingside without any hope of getting back into the game.