It has been what seems to me like a very long time since I last shared a correspondence game in this blog, but that time has come once again. The game below was played in a clan challenge between Metallica and The White Hats. I played on board 1 for The White Hats in this clan challenge that consisted of three boards. I was able to win my other game against Johannes Goethe, but it did not help our clan all that much and with a score of 4 - 2, Metallica won the challenge. It was interesting that out of the six games played in the challenge, in five of them it was the player with the black pieces who won the game. The variation of the Scotch that was played in this game, I do not remember playing ever before and the evidence I have gathered from the games I have analysed support that fact. There are of course hundreds of games that still wait to be analysed, so therefore I can't really be certain that this was the first time that I faced this variation. Then again there are also a couple of thousand over the board blitz games that I can never analyse afterwards, so I may never know the truth for absolute certainty.
I am reasonably happy with how I played the first six moves of this game. The move 6...Bd6 was a bit odd looking move in my opinion and I did not know how to best reply to it. The idea behind the move is to put the bishop to e5. I ended up playing 7.c3, which does not look like a good move. The other option I had in mind was possibly Qxf6 and in case I ever get into this position again, it is likely the move I am going to play. I avoided that option in this game because I did not want to help my opponent to develop his pieces. Had I taken on f6, I think that it would have been easier to play that position. When Johannes Goethe played 7...Be5, I had to decide where to place my queen. For some reason I thought that moving the queen back to d1 was the best thing to do. I may have thought that from d1 the queen is not restricting the movement of my other pieces and it controls quite a lot of squres. It turns out that I went one square too far and I should have stopped the queen's journey to d2. It seems like the obvious move to make at the moment and maybe I remember to do it when I end up in a similar position next time.
Not much happened in the game until it came time to make my 15th move. I decided to go after the h7-pawn and played 15.Ng5. I thought that it would give me some play, but it seems to be like a bad idea. Had my opponent replied with 15...Nd5 and continued accurately, I would have been in some trouble. However, Johannes played 15...Bf5, which would lead into an even game with accurate play. I was not up to the task of even playing one accurate move after 15...Bf5 and instead I blundered with 16.Qc2. The problem with my move is that it would have been a waste of a move had my opponent taken on d3 because I would need to take back with the queen. I would have basically used two moves to capture the bishop that could have been done with one move. Even though Johannes did not take the bishop, he remained on the better side of the board in the game continuation. Then on my 18th move I made a huge blunder that could have been the losing move, but my opponent made a mistake on move 19 that would have allowed to get back into the game. Unfortunately I let my chance go by and played the move 20.Rae1, which was the final nail in my coffin. I have added mate in one puzzle 510, mate in two puzzles 726 & 727, mate in three puzzle 649 and mate in four puzzle 518 today.
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