Chess960 SP365

Sometimes the winner of the game is decided very quickly, even before the opening phase of the game is finished and this game is one example of situations like that. I played this game at https://chessrex.com/. The game started on June 19th, 2016 and finished on July 7th, 2016. It was possible for players involved in this game to use 5 days per move. Obviously neither player used all of that time to make their moves and the game was played in a faster pace.

Before I made my first move, I noticed an undefended pawn on a7 and because I had a bishop on g1, it made sense to me to open the game with 1.f4. With my next move I was threatening to take on a7 and possibly follow it up by taking the rook on b8. EOS1 saw the threat and played Nb6 in order to prevent me from taking on a7. Maybe 1...f5 is also an idea worth considering instead of the move played in the game. It would have, in a way, also stopped me from taking on a7, because it would have just ended in a few trades and I was not interested in trading too many pieces. 2.e4 seemed to me to be the easiest way to ensure easy development, so that is what I played. EOS1 replied with 2...e5, which looked to me as a small mistake during the game, but I guess there is actually nothing wrong with it. The reason I did not like that move was that after 3.fxe5 rook may need to take back if my opponent wants to keep the material even and that allows me to harass the rook on the following move, gaining some time. EOS1 did take back with the rook and in that position I considered basically only two moves, 4.d4 or 4.Bd4. I rejected the idea of playing 4.d4 due to the reply 4...Bg5+, which would have been really annoying to face. Therefore I developed my bishop to d4 instead. When I saw the reply to that I was very surprised and thought, well that was a bit too easy. I did at first look if there is something that I am missing, but then soon realised that my opponent indeed had left the rook in a square where I can take it for free... Giving me a free rook is usually very risky and most of the time it means that I am going to win the game. The rest of the game did not pose me any real problems and I was able to get the win rather easily after that unfortunate rook sacrifice. I did not play the rest of the game perfectly by any stretch of the imagination, but one thing especially bothers me with the way I played or rather just one move I made. On move 19 I had the opportunity to play Na6+ winning the exchange, but for some reason I did not see it and played 19.Nd3 instead. I have added four mate in one and one mate in three puzzle today.

I have decided that I am going to take a break from posting and my next post will be coming July 18th, 2016. The time away of making these posts is actually not a vacation because I plan on doing as much of the remaining reposts as I can during that time and see how far I can get with them. I have not been able to do the reposts as fast as I would have liked especially between Monday and Friday, so I think this time off from normal posts is necessary, so that I can focus on the updates without needing to worry most of the week what I am going to post about and how. I have also planned on starting a new project, to which I have not had enough time previously, but may concentrate on more next week depending on how much time I spent on the reposts.