Chess960 SP363 with 1.g3

This starting position has appeared in this blog before, but the so called opening phase of the game does differ from the first game. This was one of the three games I played against capajan on June 26th, 2016. The first clear mistake was played by my opponent on move 14. The diagram shows the situation at the board after my 14th move f3. Capajan replied with 14...exf3, which is not a good idea. It made sure that the light-squared bishop on f7 will be blocked by the pawn on d5 and be rather passive. The opening of the f-file was only good for me. That being said, only by playing 15.Qh3+ I was able to get a clear advantage.

A few moves later capajan blundered by playing 17...Rf8 and my opponent was, for the first time, in a losing position. I had just castled, which was a bit sloppy move that lost some of my advantage. In order to keep my clear advantage, I should have played either 17.Bf4 or 17.a4. The next diagram position has been taken after the move 17.O-O-O.

The move 17...b6 was required to keep my knight from c5. Capajan's 17th move was the blunder that decided the game, after that capajan could not get back in the game anymore. I did make an inaccuracy on move 20 that briefly changed my advantage from winning to a clear one. Instead of moving the knight from c5 to d3, I should have played 20.Rxf7. It did not last long, since my opponent threw away the last hope of saving the game with the move 20...Kd7??

I have added new computer analysis to the games in these posts E17 Queen's Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation, Kramnik Variation, E38 Nimzo-Indian Defense: Classical Variation. Berlin Variation and B70 Sicilian Defense: Dragon Variation. General. I have also added one game to the following two posts: B70 Sicilian Defense: Dragon Variation. General and C50 Italian Game: Hungarian Defense. Please note that those two new games have only been added to the replayer, they are still missing the things that I am going to type about those games, it is something I will add at some point.

Chess960 SP493 1.e4 b6 2.Ng3

This game was played in a team match called 960! Easter Island vs Kartik City. It was played on 16 boards and I played on board 2 for Kartik City. The final score of the match was 12 - 20 in favor of Kartik City. In addition to this win, I lost my other game against lusi47. It is interesting to me that my Chess960 correspondence rating is these days only slightly over 1600 at Chess.com, but on other sites like ChessRex I get my rating easily over 1800. Also my ratings with faster time controls in Chess960 are close to 1900, no matter what the site is. Only the rating at Chess.com is for some reason quite low and honestly it does not seem to get any better either.

The first position in which one of the players made a clear mistake can be seen below. Lusi47 played 4...Nf4, which is a clear mistake. Moving the knight for the second time does not seem to make any sense. The knight does threaten the pawn on g2, but that is about it and it is easily dealt with 5.O-O. Lusi47 would have been better off developing a new piece to the game or, for instance move a pawn so that a new piece can be developed.

I replied with the move 5.O-O obviously and then lusi47 played 5...h6, which could have meant a loss for my opponent already. The idea behind moving the pawn to h6 was to develop the bishop to h7, but it was a bit too slow move to play. The bishop would have been better off staying in the g8-a2 diagonal. The game went well for me up to the move 7...Bf6, but then I made a huge mistake and moved my queen to c3 in the diagram position below.

My 8th move threw most of my advantage away. Lusi47 replied with 8...c6 and protected the pawn on c7. While saving the c-pawn seems like a good idea, it was a better idea to castle and give up the pawn. My opponent would have had compensation for the pawn, since the queen on c7 is rather badly placed. I should have played 9.Nf5 in reply, but I played 9.Nce2 and threw away some of my advantage. When we reached the diagram position below, the game had reached equality. The move lusi47 played then was a blunder. Moving the knight from f4 to e6 was much more passive than 10...Bg5. 10...Bg5 would have also threatened the move Nxh3+.

In order to take the full advantage of the move 10...Ne6, I should have replied with 11.Nh5. I played 11.Bg4 because I wanted to get my bishop to a better square. It was answered with 11...Bg5, which was a step in the wrong direction. Instead of playing 11...Bg5, which threatened the queen on e3, lusi47 should have finally developed the knight from c8 to d6. I continued in the correct manner with 12.Qc3. I should have a clear advantage due to more active pieces. Lusi47 replied with 12...d6 and then I moved my pawn from d2 to d4 and some of my advantage disappeared. The next turning point for the worse for my opponent can be seen in the diagram below. Lusi47 played 16...Qc6, which really did not do much. It protected the pawn on d6, but it was unnecessary because if 16...Ne7 17.Qxd6, then 17...Bxe4 is a possibility to win the pawn back.

The game kept going quite well for me until I played 24.Bxd6 in the next diagram position. Taking the pawn on d6 really did not help since my opponent just gets the pawn back from e4 and the position should be roughly equal. Material will be even and the pawn structure is more or less symmetrical.

The game was close to a deciding point a few moves later when my opponent blundered with 30...Qb7. The next diagram shows the situation on the board when my opponent moved the queen to b7. The reason why 30...Qb7 is worse than 30...Rb8 is that the queen could have created counterplay from e4. In the game continuation lusi47 had to go full on passive mode.

I added more pressure to the pawn on b6 with 31.Qf6, which basically forced 31...Rb8. Then I did not know what I should do next and decided to move my pawn to a4. Not sure why I played it, but I guess I just could not think of a better move. I guess my opponent did not have the right idea in the position either because lusi47 played 32...h5 and ended up on a path towards a loss again. Lusi47 should have played 32...Qe4 in order to get some counterplay. The move played in the game is just a waiting move on a passive position. After 32...h5 it was all downhill for my opponent and lusi47 resigned after 38.Kh6 in a position where I threatened a mate in one.

Since my last post, I have changed a proper game to two of my Chess960 posts... I realised the other day when I needed to check something on all my chess960 posts that for some reason I had put the wrong game to the posts Chess960 SP182 and Chess960 SP93. Those two posts had the same wrong game for some reason. It may have been the wrong game since I changed the replayer for my Chess960 games. Interestingly nobody had commented that I had the wrong game in those two posts... Oh well, so I fixed that. In my post Chess960 SP626 most of the game did not show in the replayer, now it does... So many mistakes that make me wonder what if anything goes in my head sometimes. I have also updated the computer analysis to the following posts: C53 Italian Game: Classical Variation. Giuoco Pianissimo, C62 Spanish Game: Steinitz Defense, C67 Spanish Game: Berlin Defense. Rio Gambit Accepted, C78 Spanish Game: Morphy Defense #2, C99 Spanish Game: Morphy Defense. Chigorin Defense Panov System, D07 Queen's Gambit Refused: Chigorin Defense and D12 Slav Defense: Quiet Variation, Schallopp Defense.

Chess960 SP430 with 1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Ne6 3.Nbc3 Bc5 4.Ne3 Nc6 5.d3 Qd8 6.f3

I have started to divide the Chess960 games not only with starting position, but also with the reasonable opening moves played in them. The game I am sharing with you now has not been shared in this blog before. This game was played in the club match called KNOCKOUT 960 Final: Total 960 vs OCD. This was played on 20 boards and I played on board 9 for Obsessive Chess Disorder!! The final score of the match was 30 - 10 in favor of Total 960. Our opponents did have players who had their accounts closed due to cheating, but even though these four players won all of their games, we would have still lost the match even if the score would have been corrected so that the cheaters would have lost all of their games. In addition to this loss, I won my other game against sschmieta.

The game remained to be evenly played up to the move 6.f3, which is why I would extent the possible theoretical moves to that point in the game. The game started to go wrong for my opponent with the move 6...Qg5. The diagram below shows a position where my opponent played his 6th move. That being said, it only gave me a small advantage. I replied with the move 7.Qd2 and then my opponent made another mistake, which combined with the mistake on the previous move, added to my clear advantage. A better move for sschmieta was 7...h5. In the game sschmieta played 7...O-O-O. The game continued with the moves 8.O-O-O g6 and then I played 9.Ned5, which threw away most of my advantage. Better moves for me were 9.Kb1 and 9.Ncd5.

Moving my knight from e3 to d5 allowed sschmieta to trade queens and that was exactly what my opponent did. I took back with my rook and then my opponent made another mistake 10...f5 in the diagram position below. The game continued with the moves 11.Bxc5 Nxc5 and then I played a sloppy move 12.a3 and the clear advantage I briefly had, disappeared. In order to keep my clear advantage, I should have played 12.exf5.

After that the game continued without big problems for either side until I played 25.Nxa2. The diagram below shows the position in which I played my 25th move. The correct reply for sschmieta would have been 25...Na5, the only move that would have given my opponent a clear advantage. The move that my opponent played 25...Kc8 was only good enough for an even position, provided that I answer with an accurate move like 26.b3. I played 26.Nh3 in order to stop the h-pawn's advancement and maybe get my rook more options to which it can go.

Sschmieta should have taken my knight and after I take back with my rook, move the remaining knight to a5. The knight would start its journey towards the e3 square via c4. Luckily for me, sschmieta did not take advantage of my error and played the passive 26...Nf7 instead. The next mistake was played by me on move 29. The next diagram shows the situation at the board when I played the horrible 29.Nd3?? It would have been important for me to prevent the pawn on a5 from advancing and keep the knights from c6 and d6 from penetrating on my side of the board. Had my opponent played 29...a4 and therefore created both weak squares and weak pawns for me, sschmieta would have been close to a winning position.

Sschmieta did not find the right idea at first and played the move 29...b6?? It allowed me to play 30.a4 and stop my opponent from playing it. However, I did not see the danger and played 30.Kb2 instead. My opponent did not miss his chance second time in a row and took the clear advantage with the move 30...a4. I then blundered and played 31.Rdd1 and I was in a losing position. I would have been in serious trouble even if I had played my best chance 31.Nhf2, but at least I would have avoided being completely lost. A few moves later I got my last chance for fighting for a draw. In the next diagram position I should have played 35.Ng4 and I might have been able to hold a draw with accurate play.

In the remainder of the game sschmieta played accurately enough and did not give me any more chances to get a draw. Since my last post I have updated the chess engine analysis in the posts C07 French Defense: Tarrasch Variation. Chistyakov Defense, C41 Philidor Defense, C41 Philidor Defense: Larsen Variation and C50 Italian Game: Hungarian Defense.

Things are changing again

The most notable change that is going on in the blog is the fact that I changing the way I publish chess games. I used to publish them using the publishing feature in ChessBase 12. Then I needed to change to the one provided by Chess.com because the way that the CB 12 allowed me to publish games did not suit my needs anymore. Now that ChessBase has a new way of publishing games and diagrams I am changing back to it because it is much easier and faster way for me. If the ChessBase publishing tool would also support Chess960, I would use it for those games as well. Alas, it does not, which means that publishing Chess960 games the way I have done so far will remain quite slow. I will from now on publish my chess games using only one replayer per post. This may be an improvement in sense that if one wants to download all games of a certain opening, then one can download them all at once rather than one by one. Also one does not need to scroll down the post, but instead click on the next game in the replayer. The ChessBase replayer also provides the possibility of analysing the games with an engine. There also other interesting features in it, but you may need to maximise the replayer in order to see them all. I am also happy about the "living" diagrams that I can now do, thanks to ChessBase. The new diagrams are an improvent to the old static positions that you may have seen in this blog. In the "living" diagrams you can make moves and go back and forth the line you have played.

I have also changed the way the mobile version of the site is shown. This I made mainly due to the fact that I was not able to get the new ChessBase features to work properly on mobile phones. Admittedly I should have probably made the chance before, but better late than never, I guess. Today I finally finished the changes that were required for the post Chess960 SP33. However, it will not remain in its current form for all that long because I will divide the Chess960 games not only by starting position, but also by the opening theory used in them. I would use the word theory very carefully here, because at least according to my limited knowledge, there really is no opening theory for Chess960 games. Well, at least there are no named variations in the same way that chess has as far as I am aware. Also when I went through the Chess960 games in SP 33, I noticed a bit of a problem in the analysis for the games. I noticed that using the ± and ∓ signs can be cause problems. Especially the latter one sometimes had changed to the former. Therefore in the future I will use +/- and -/+ signs in order to make sure that kind of a problem is avoided.

While I am changing the replayer, I also update the analysis in the chess games. This is most likely the last time I am updating the analysis in my chess games because of the huge time consumption. The posts in which I have updated both the analysis and the replayer are as follows: A00 Amar Opening: General, A00 Anderssen Opening: General, A00 Clemenz Opening: General, A00 Van't Kruijs Opening: General, A04 Zukertort Opening: Nimzo-Larsen Variation, A35 English Opening: Symmetrical Variation. Two Knights Variation, A38 English Opening: Symmetrical Variation. Full Symmetry Line, A43 Franco-Benoni Defense, B00 Owen Defense: General, B01 Scandinavian Defense: Mieses-Kotroc Variation, B07 Pirc Defense: Kholmov System, B32 Sicilian Defense: Open #3, B33 Sicilian Defense: Lasker-Pelikan Variation. Sveshnikov Variation Chelyabinsk Variation, B72 Sicilian Defense: Dragon Variation. Classical Variation, B83 Sicilian Defense: Scheveningen Variation, Modern Variation #3, C01 French Defense: Exchange Variation and C66 Spanish Game: Berlin Defense, Closed Wolf Variation.