Chess960 SP548

I played two chess960 games at lichess.org today and the game you can view below was the latter one. The reason for it is obviously that the starting position featured in the first one was something that I had already covered in this blog. I did record both games while I played them, so those two games will appear on my YouTube channel next week. I did something in this game that I do not normally do, I started the game by pushing the c-pawn two squares forward. I did that in order to activate my bishop. Had I looked at the starting position more clearly, I would have noticed that the my queen was on g1 in the starting position, meaning that I am unlikely to castle short. My first move made it also a bad idea to castle long, so my king stayed at the center for longer than usual. My opponent's response to c4 was f6, which opened the a2-g8 diagonal for the queen, so that it attacked the c-pawn immediately. I protected my c-pawn by playing 2.b3, which I think is the best defensive option, since 2.d3 would block the path of the light-squared bishop and playing either knight to e3 seemed to also limit my options. On move 4 I did block the path of my light-squared bishop as I thought playing e4 and controlling the square d5 was necessary. The problem with the move 4.e4 is that it allows my opponent to post a knight on d4, which I can't drive away with a pawn. This is something that DAV-5000 noticed and began moving one of the knights towards d4. When a knight landed on d4 on move 5, I was not all that worried about it because it did not really threaten anything, it just controlled some squares. However, it also prevented me from moving the g-pawn as long as the queen was on g1 and the king was on e1. I was not sure how I should continue, but I played my bishop to a3 with the idea of placing my pieces to squares where they control as many squares as possible. It was something that Stockfish does not seem to like and it seems to prefer f4.

While DAV-5000's knights on d4 and f4 were annoying and a bit restricting, they would still need the help of other pieces to do something dangerous for me. I did have a plan of getting rid of the knights before that happens. First I targeted the knight on d4 by playing 8.Nc2. The idea was to take on d4 and when the pawn takes back, play my other knight to e2 and either trade also the other knights or drive the knight from f4 away. DAV-5000 replied with 8...d5, which was the worst move up to that point according to Stockfish, however, my next move was even worse. So, instead of taking the advantage, I gave it to my opponent. My idea behind 9.d3 was that I wanted to keep a pawn on c4 and on e4, so had my opponent taken either pawn, I could have recaptured with a pawn. For some reason I did not think that taking on d5 would be a good idea. My position kept going downhill with my next move, 10.Bc5. After that move I should have been lost according to the computer analysis. The idea behind Bc5 was to take on d4 and maybe win a pawn by doing so. It might have looked quite bad for me, but after a couple of moves when DAV-5000 played 13...c5, the position became close to even again. At that time, my bishop on c2 was like a big pawn and not really useful. However, I could have activated my bishop a bit by playing 15.b4. That move would have also given my other bishop something to do. It is unfortunate that I did not realise this fact during the game. My opponent should have stopped the b4 idea when he or she had the chance because it was my best chance to get my bishops into play. It did not matter because I did not find the right plan and instead operated on the center of the board with my queen and pawns. My failure to understand the importance of the move b4 meant that my opponent eventually ended up being slightly better. After 18.fxe4, I had a protected passed pawn on e4, but I had to activate my pieces in order to make use of the pawn. I tried to accomplish the activation of the bishops by rerouting them towards the kingside. It came clear to me quite quickly that my opponent does not want to allow it to happen. The move 21...g4 made sure that my light-squared bishop will not get to h5 or to other good squares. The position should be roughly even after g4, but then I made a bad move and I was in trouble once again.

I did get my opportunity to even the position again after DAV-5000 played 23...Bd6, but I missed my chance, not only once but twice in a row. Bad moves by both players kept the game roughly even. Then with the huge blunder, 31...Rh2, my opponent gave me the best chance up to that point to win the game. Obviously I missed my chance and played something stupid instead. Then after 32...Rg7, the move 33.e5 seems like an obvious move to make, but for some reason or the other, I did not do it. I missed the move e5 again on move 34 and made a horrible move that could have lost the game for me. I should have been lost, but the fact that my opponent had less time than me, not that either of us had all that much time left on the clock, made the moves difficult and therefore I managed to get a draw in the end. I have added mate in one puzzle 509 and mate in three puzzle 648 today.

Here is the live commentary of the game that I have done.