The game below was the third game I played last Sunday and with this game I experienced more problems than with the first two. This was the first of three games that I ended up playing against capajan. Even though I managed to win all three games, this first one and the last one especially I was very close of losing for quite some time, until I finally got the win. In this starting position the kings start in a very secure place as the pawns in front of them are protected quite well, the d-pawn has the maximum protection, it is protected by the bishop, the rook and the king. My opponent, capajan started the game with g3, opening a diagonal for the bishop and for the queen. I replied with 1...d5, which I almost immediately thought to be a bad move, due to Qh3+ possibly winning a pawn. However, while my opponent could take that pawn, I would be ahead in development, for instance, 2.Qh3+ Bd7 3.Qxh7 Nf6 and the queen would need to move again. Probably due to that variation, my opponent did not want to play that line. I did offer that pawn for two more moves until I finally played 4...Nf6, which protected the h-pawn. Then for the next three moves I moved my bishop one square at a time, which seems to be wasting time. However, there was no good way for my opponent to take advantage of those three bishop moves in a serious way. Capajan was only able to get a slightly better position due those moves. Capajan tried to hunt my bishop and continued the game with 8...h3, intending to play g4 next. Instead of moving my bishop for the 4th time in a row, I thought that I would play Nfd7 and in case of g4, I would just take on e5 with my knight. This left two options for my opponent, either to take on e5 or to take on f5. I was actually happy that capajan decided to take my bishop, because had my opponent taken on e5, I would not have had any good squares for my bishop to retreat to. I would have likely retreated to d7 with the bishop, but it would not have been as good for me as the game continuation. Due to the move 10.gxf5, the position became even.
On move 14 capajan played Re1, which probably only prepares castling, because I am not sure why else would my opponent play that move. 14.Re1 was the biggest mistake that capajan had done up to that point. I did not continue with the best idea and therefore I gave capajan some chances to hold the game. Capajan then made an even bigger blunder and castled. It would have allowed me to generate a dangerous attack towards the enemy king, but unfortunately I was not alert of all the possibilities and played the less impactful 15...Qb4 instead of the very strong move 15...Bxb2+. The game continuation was still clearly favoring my position and I was able to win a pawn from f4, after which my opponent took on b6 with the bishop. Out of the two possible pawn captures I chose to play cxb6 in order to get my rook to the half open c-file where my opponent's king resided. It was, however, better to take back with the a-pawn, at least according to Stockfish 7 64 POPCNT. My next inaccuracy came when I went to a4 with my queen on move 18. I played the queen there in order to assist with my attacking plans. I was perhaps a bit too optimistic about my chances and despite of the fact that I realised after 20.d4 that I had lost good attacking possibilities, I continued with 20...b5 in order to push the pawn to b4 and open some lines for the attack. Capajan did not allow me to trade my b-pawn for the c-pawn, but instead played 22.c4, which complicated my task a bit. I still tried to open lines to the best of my abilities and played 22...dxc4. I would have of course wanted my king to be in b8 and my d-rook to be on c8 at this point. Because I had not played those two moves, capajan was able to take on c4 with the bishop. I then played 23...Rd6 with the idea of moving it to c6 next. I never had the time to do that because after 24.Bb3 Qa5 25.Rc1 I can't play Rdc6 because I would either lose a pawn or get a weak pawn on c6. I did consider the move Qf5+, but I did not like the position that would exist after that so I played the passive 25...Rdd7 in order to keep the queens on the board and not to get more weaknesses or lose the f-pawn.
I was maybe trying to hang on to some vague winning chances too much and I should have probably just traded the queens because I soon faced some problems to which I reacted poorly. After the trade of rooks, capajan played 27.Bxe6+, which took me by surprise at first, but then I realised the point of the move. If I take the bishop then Qf8+ wins the piece back and the material would be even. I should have of course taken the bishop and let the material be even, because in the game continuation I end up being a pawn down. With the move 28...g5, I made things even worse for me and I was already in a losing position. Capajan was able to be in a winning position until my opponent played 34.Qh5+ that should with correct play only lead to a draw. I did not play correctly and I immediately blundered and gave my opponent another chance to win the game. On the next move my opponent made another bad move that gave me another chance to get a draw from this game, but like with my previous move, I also blundered on my 35th move, so that I was losing the game again. The game continued to be very favorable for capajan in the time trouble, until my opponent decided to make a serious blunder 46.Rxe3. That move would have stepped into a forced mate, but due to the time trouble, I had no time to think, so I only took the rook with my bishop and did not check on f1 with my queen enabling the forced mate. Luckily I did not see that mate afterwards in the game either, so that I was able to concentrate on making moves fast. Had I seen the mate after I took the rook, then I might have been too annoyed to pay enough attention to the clock and lost on time. Luckily capajan made an even clearer mistake and checked on f3 with the queen because I could see even in time trouble that the queen can be taken for free in that position. I have added three mate in one, one mate in three and one mate in four puzzle today.
The game above can also be viewed in the video below where I commentate on the moves while I play the game.
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