Chess960 SP485

This game was played at lichess.org today in order to get something to post. I was not in my best form today and could not concentrate to the game all that well. Unfortunately that meant that I went back below 1900 with my chess960 rating. While my opponent has a low rating in chess960, I looked at Scarbody's other ratings and some of them were over 2000, so I faced a stronger player than the rating would imply. Scarbody had not obviously played all that many chess960 games before this one and actually Scarbody's rating increased by 245 points due to this win. My opponent offered me a rematch, but due to the time constraints I was in, I could not play another game. I think I played reasonable moves until I played 9.Qc3. It was a bad move that only put my queen to an even worse square, especially after Ne4 that drives the queen to e1. I had to go to e1 with the queen because otherwise my knight on f4 may run out of good squares to go to if it is driven back from f4. I had not blundered the game away just yet, but my questionable choices had made things uncomfortable for me. My 11th move was the first one that handed over the advantage to my opponent. My idea behind 11.Rb3 was to overprotect c3, so that when I move my knight away, I can take back on d1 with the queen. Had I not moved my rook, then Qxd1 would be replied with Nc3.

I did get into a slightly favorable position a few moves later when Scarbody played 14...Qf5. At first I replied correctly with 15.f3, but one move after that my position seemed to go worse once again. I had planned to play Nc5 for awhile because I wanted to jump to e6 with one of my knights. I did see of course that my opponent had covered the square sufficiently with the queen and the knight. I considered the move 16.h4 briefly during the game, but I was not sure of the consequences and therefore did not want to open my king position unnecessarily. My 17th move was the worst move of the game up to that point. Scarbody had the dominating position after that for a few moves. A slight mistake from my opponent on move 20 and I was able to get better into the game, but even after that Scarbody had to be favored in the position. Another inaccuracy from my opponent on move 22 that could have turned the tables, but I blundered and threw one more chance to hold the draw away. I blundered a second time in a row and played 24.Ne2, after which I should have been in a losing position. I did immediately get another chance to hold the draw, because my opponent played a horrible move 25...Nb5. Had my opponent played 25...Nc4, I would have been in huge trouble. I was not able to see the move 25.Ne5 that could have saved me from the loss and instead made the game losing move 25.a4. I have added two mate in two, two mate in three and one mate in four puzzle today.