Chess960 SP652

When I play Chess960 at lichess.org, everything just seems to go my way. I play there weekly some rapid games of the variant and so far my winning percentage is 72, the average rating of my opponents being 1680.13. When I play correspondence Chess960 games at Chess.com, my interest to the games is rather low at the moment and it does show in my rating, which is only 1677. However, my Live 960 rating is 1893, so when I play the games at one sitting, I am these days better concentrated and interested about the games than when I play my correspondence games. I have tried my best to completely get rid of my correspondence games, but I still have 32 of them in progress. Maybe some day I will finally end all of those games, I will not lose any game on purpose, but I may not give my best effort to fight for the win either. There is no reference game in the notation because no engine had played the horrible move 1.c4 in my Chess960 reference database.

This game started with my inaccurate first move 1.c4. While the intention behind the move was good, to open the b1-h7 diagonal for the light-squared bishop, it was a bit hasty and bad move. It is not bad enough to give me any serious trouble, but there are certainly better alternatives like 1.f4. The first real mistake was played my opponent on move 3 in the position below. Stirlits played 3...Ng6, ignoring my threat to the c-pawn. Maybe the idea was that when I take the pawn, the move Be5 would be possible, getting the rook from the corner.

For a brief moment I thought that I was lost after 4...Be5, but then I realised that I can take on g6 with my bishop, threatening the rook on e8, which saved me and showed that my opponent's plan was flawed. It was all downhill for stirlits after that. I was able to checkmate my opponent on move 34. I have added mate in two puzzles 754 - 756 and mate in three puzzles 674 & 675 today.

This game can also be viewed in the video below.