Chess960 SP764

This was a 10 minute game with a 5 second increment and it was played at lichess.org on May 11th, 2016. I do not really like these starting positions where the bishops start on the b1, b8, g1 and g8. I think those starting squares are the most inconvenient places for the bishops to start in view of development. I know that I have typed about this same thing earlier, but it keeps annoying me, so I keep mentioning it. The arrangement of the pieces in the starting position determine on which side I want to castle and in this particular starting position I would like to castle queenside. The location of the queen and the bishops will determine for me, which side is the better side for castling. In this SP764, the white queen is located on h1, which means I probably want to activate it by playing g3. Because the light-squared bishop is unlikely to be played so that it is on the long diagonal a8-h1, the move g3 would weaken the light squares in the kingside and make castling there inadvisable.

I opened the game with 1.d4, which does help to control the center a bit, which is as important in chess960 as it is in chess in my opinion. I decided to play d4 over e4 because I thought that I would later play g3, which opens the long diagonal for the queen, had I played e4, the diagonal would have been blocked a bit. My opponent, kerym-G, replied with 1...g6 immediately opening the long diagonal for the queen and attacking the pawn on d4. I continued with Nf3 and simply defended the pawn and tried to take the center better under my control. Kerym-G answered with 2...f5, which is a reasonable move in my opinion, it opens a diagonal for the bishop and tries to control the square e4. I played Nc3 next, which does continue with the take center in control theme, but my first three moves have made the development of the bishops quite awkward. My opponent replied with 3...c6, which opens a diagonal for the dark-squared bishop. It is quite clear at this point that my opponent prefers to get the bishops developed as quickly as possible and not care so much about the knights, while I have done the opposite. On move 4 I played h3 in order to place my bishop to h2 and if Bxh2, then Qxh2 and I did consider castling to the kingside too. I would have probably castled to the kingside, had the bishops been traded on h2. I had to wait placing my bishop to h2, because of 4...Ne6 put more pressure to my pawn on d4, so I had to defend my pawn first with 5.e3. Kerym-G replied with 5...Bc7. Moving the bishop diagonally one square forward does not look all that impressive, but the bishop does control more squares from c7 than it could control anywhere else on the board in that position. Moving the bishop also enables castling to the queenside. Because Bc7 did not create a threat, I was finally able to play my bishop to h2. It was answered by f4, which I thought I should just ignore and try to get my other bishop into play, so I played a3. I was also sure that I will castle to the queenside after I saw the move f4. I think all went relatively well for both sides until kerym-G blundered with 17...Qg6. The idea behind 17...Qg6 just does not work, it does threaten two things at the same time, the knight on f7 and the pawn on c2, the problem is that I can just take on d8 and be up the exchange. 17...Qg6 was the losing move, had my opponent played 17...Bxc2+, I would have been slightly worse. During the game I thought that 16...Bh7 was the start of the downhill for my opponent. I have added one mate in one, two mate in three and two mate in four puzzles today.