Chess960 SP435

This game was played in a team match called 960 Angels for 13th June. It is played on 43 boards between CLUB 960 and Space Angel Roast Acorns & Marshmallows In Andromeda's Cluster Of Infinite Bright Stars. I am playing on board 4 for Space Angel Roast Acorns & Marshmallows In Andromeda's Cluster Of Infinite Bright Stars. The match is not going that well for us at the moment, the current score is 30.5 - 23.5 in favor of CLUB 960.

I have lately mainly started my chess960 games by pushing a central pawn two squares forward, but I decided to go for a different approach this time and opened up the long diagonal for my bishop instead. I actually could have started this game by playing 1.O-O too, had I wanted to go for that one. I actually kind of want to do that the next time I end up in a similar starting position that allows me to do that. 1.g3 was met by 1...b5, so that the light-squared bishops were contesting each other immediately. Obviously I did not want to trade the bishops because it would have left the light squares around my king weak, so I played 2.e4 in order to block the long diagonal a bit. Up to move 5.Ne2, the game seemed to progress with quite natural looking developing moves. Dartnado's 5th move was a bit questionable because the purpose of the move seems only to be to prevent my knight from jumping to f5. Well, it might also help in the development of the queen, but it is not all that impressive according to Stockfish. I did not continue with the right idea and therefore let my opponent back into the game. Had I played 6.d4 I might have had a better game than in the game continuation. With the move 8...d5, my opponent's position started to go down the drain and I was able to win a pawn in the process. It might have been the start for the downfall, but after 12...Qd6 it started to be quite clear what was going to be the outcome of the game. I was up two pawns and fairly easy looking game ahead of me. I was able not to mess things up and Dartnado thought it best to resign after 23.Ne4. Admittedly I did not think that winning this game would have been easy from that position, so I was glad to see that the game ended before I needed to make use of my advantage and win the game. I have added three mate in one and two mate in three puzzles today.