Chess960 SP958

It is time once again to explore the wonderful world of chess960. This game was played in a team match called open challenge. The match is played on 15 boards between Geto-Daci and CHESS960 SOCIETY and I play on board 3 for CHESS960 SOCIETY. The current score in the match is 11 - 14 in favor CHESS960 SOCIETY. We may be closer in securing at least a draw from the match, but Geto-Daci can still turn things around and win if we are not careful.

I am not sure what the best plan of developing the pieces is in this particular starting position, but I kind of like how my opponent started the game. 1.g4 opens up the long diagonal for the queen, which now eyes on the pawn on b7 in front of my king. Now that I looked at this move, I started to think that maybe one could follow up g4 with h3 or h4 and plant the dark-squared bishop on h2, so that both bishops and the queen would eye on menacingly towards the enemy king. The problem with this plan is that it can be handled simply by blocking the paths for the bishops with pawns in a same way I did in this game. B7 is not actually that weak of a square from the start either because it is defended by the king and the knight, so the queen and bishop battery will need more help in demolishing the defences. The way I played the first two moves is not really ideal because playing both e5 and f6 block the path for my queen potentially for a long time. Then again, I do not want to bring my queen too early into the game, but obviously I want to make it easy for the queen to come to the play when she is needed. On his third move, dragos_paul_visan, played Nf3, which to me seems a bit off because why he would want to block the diagonal for his bishop and queen. After White's third move, I am slightly on the better side of things. My slight advantage disappears a bit according to Stockfish after 4...Bc5. The reason why I played that move is that I like fast development of pieces instead of making lot of pawn moves. I thought that c5 is the best square for my bishop and I wanted to develop it before I move my knight from e8 to d6 after I have played d5, so that the knight does not block the pawn. However, 4...Nc6 might have been a better move.

My opponent played 6.Na4, a move that I do not really understand. Well, maybe the idea is to drive the bishop to a square where it is not so well placed or if I do not move it, then trade the knight to the bishop. The problem with the relocation idea is that the knight is also badly placed after it has gone to a4. I chose the wrong square to go to and placed it to e7 instead of d6, which would have been somewhat better square. I chose the square e7, so that I could put my knight to d6. I was pretty much following a plan at this point and I had some idea on how to develop my pieces. Dragos_paul_visan continued with 7.d3, which is a bad move because it allowed me to play 7...d4, which I did not play for some reason. Instead I played 7...Nd6, which is not good because it allows Nc5 because the bishop that covered that square is now blocked by the knight. The game went on evenly until my opponent played 11.Nf3, interesting part of that move is that the knight lands on f3 for the second time during this game and neither time has been a good one, on both occasions the position has gone from equal to favoring me. However, the balance is immediately restored with the move 11...b6. The balance does not last long and after the move 13.Nd4, I should be on the slightly better side of the board.

The next turning point is when my opponent for some reason decided to castle short, even though in this starting position it does not really look like it as the king goes from one side of the board to the other. Maybe it appeared as the safer side even though the pawns in front of the White king are far from protecting pawns. My reply to 16.O-O was less than ideal and after 16...g5 my opponent may have hold on to a draw had he played accurate moves in the remaining part of the game. He went astray immediately with 17.c3 after which the position went more and more downhill for him and could not get to a more even position again. I have added one analysed game to the following posts: C18 French Defense: Winawer Variation. Classical Variation, D02 Queen Pawn Game: Symmetrical Variation, C44 Scotch Gambit and C45 Scotch Game: Schmidt Variation. I have added two mate in one, two mate in three and one mate in four puzzle today.