26 Jan 2017

Chess960 SP493 1.e4 b6 2.Ng3

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.

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