The name of this post changed on February 16th, 2017. I am a bit obsessed of figuring out the names of the openings I have played in my games and lately I have decided that I will name the openings the way Deep Fritz 14 classifies the openings. While I have liked the way I named the openings in the past, there is a problem with it. The older way would have had two completely different names if the move order was different, for example, if the move order is 1.h3 d5 Nf3, then the name of the opening would have been A00 Clemenz Opening and had the game started with the move order 1.Nf3 d5 2.h3, then the name of the opening would have been A06 Réti Opening. For that reason I will change some of the names of the posts I have done before, maybe most of them. Also the opening theory might be a bit deeper this way.
I usually play in a way in which I develop my pieces as quickly as possible in the opening and only then go for the attack if possible. This game is a rare exception to the way I usually play. In most cases when I am moving the white pieces and the game starts with the moves 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc3, I will go for the move 3.Bb5. If I play against the same opponent simultaneously twice with the white pieces, then I usually play either 3.d4 or 3.Bc4 in one of the games and 3.Bb5 in the other, in case my opponent does not want to divert to some other opening before that. This game was played on the second round of the 2014 October Split II tournament that was held at Red Hot Pawn. The second round was the last one played in the tournament and the four players who had advanced to the last round decided the winner of the tournament. I was playing rather poorly on this round and I lost all of my games where I had the white pieces. With the black pieces I was able to get one win, one draw and one loss. I ended up being third in the final standings with 4 points. My opponent in this game, SuperMac, was on fourth place in the final standings with 3 points. In tournaments played at Red Hot Pawn the players get 3 points for a win and 1 point for a draw. A player called NN Cheap (2011) won the tournament, he or she gathered 15 points on round two.
This opening variation should be clearly favorable for White, according to Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT. Only the move 4...d5 is a reasonable response to 4.Ng5, other moves either lead to positions that are clearly favorable for White or winning for White. Therefore the first diagram shows the position on the board after my 4th move. The move 4...Bc5 is rather horrible and both the move I played, 5.Nxf7 and the move 5.Bxf7+ are good ways to take advantage of the blunder 4...Bc5. However, the clear favorite between the two moves is 5.Nxf7, it should give White close to a winning advantage. Now I am even more disappointed about the result of the game than I was right after the game...
SuperMac then played 5...Bxf2+, which might have been my opponent's best chance to come back to the game, because I had only one good reply to it, 6.Kf1. I played 6.Kxf2 in the game, thinking that I will win even more material with that move... Unfortunately it gave my opponent dangerous counterplay and even though my position should have still been ok, it was more difficult to play with the white pieces than it was to play with the black pieces. The next position of interest came when it was time to play my 9th move in the diagram position below.
I did not play my queen to e3 because of the possibility of the fork on c2. I probably thought that I would have just needed to move my queen again and that I had no time to do that. Therefore I moved my queen to f1, thinking that it was my only reasonable move. Unfortunately I just ended up being in a lost position because of my 9th move. Even though my position looked very dire, I did not resign and I could have been rewarded for resistance quite quickly because the game continued 9...Rf8 10.d3 d5 11.Bxd5 and then SuperMac blundered and played 11...Nd6. SuperMac had two good moves in that position, 11...Bg4 or 11...Be6. SuperMac's 11th move would have allowed me back into the game, had I moved my knight to d2 instead of c3. Then my opponent chose to play 12...Nxf7, which was a bit inaccurate move. The position after the move 12...Nxf7 can be seen in the diagram below.
I played 13.Qf2, thinking that if I can exchange queens, I could get most of the pressure off and it would be easier for me to come up with decent moves. While I may have been right with the idea that it would be easier for me to play without the queens on the board, it was a huge blunder, after which my position was quite lost again. Luckily for me, SuperMac played two concecutive mistakes and after the continuation 14...c6 15.Bb3 Nh6+ 16.Ke1, the position had reached equality once again. Instead of 14...c6 SuperMac should have played either 14...Nd6+ or 14...Nxc2. The equality continued up to the move 22.Be3.
SuperMac's 22nd move Ne2+ gave me once again a chance to get an advantage with the reply 23.Kd2. The move 22...Ne2+ did not do anything useful. The knight was better placed at d4. Probably the best square for the knight to go to from e2 is back to d4 and indeed my opponent moved the knight back to d4 on the next move. By playing 23.Kd2 in response improved the position of the king and connected the rooks. On move 24 I played the rather sloppy 24.Rhf1. During the game I was worried about the f-file and I wanted to take more control of it by moving one of my rooks there. There was actually no danger coming in my direction from the f-file as long as squares like f1, f2 and f3 are controlled properly. When the knight is on e4, the bishop on e3 and the pawn on g2 and my rooks are on the first rank, I should not have any real problems coming my way. That being said, I should have played 24.Ra4 in order to get the initiative. The next diagram shows the position after 24.Rhf1.
SuperMac played 24...Ne6 in the game, which was the first in series of blunders from both sides. Had I considered my possibilities properly, I should have seen the reason why 24...Ne6 was so bad and played the following continuation 25.Rxf8 Nxf8 26.Bxb6! The game continued with the following awful moves 25.h3 Bh5 26.g4 Bg6 27.Ng5 Nf4. While these moves were really bad, I was not in danger of losing during these few moves. I only went from a winning position to an equal position and back to a winning position again. The last mistake 27...Nf4 allowed me to get a clear advantage. Instead of 27...Nf4, SuperMac should have played either 27...Rxf1 or 27...Nxg5. The game continued to be played favorably for me until I played 40.Ne4+. The position in which I played that move can be seen in the diagram below.
I think I considered the move 40.b4 in the game, but did not like the looks of it, since the knight becomes undefended on c3 and it is on the same file as SuperMac's rook. Maybe I even thought that 40.b4 is unplayable in view of the reply 40...Bf3 and both my rook and my knight would be under attack. What I could not see that the move 40...Bf3 would have been a blunder and after 41.Nb5+ my opponent would have been well advised not to go to c6 because of Nd4+, winning the bishop. In the game SuperMac replied with 40...Bxe4 and I answered with 41.dxe4. In that position I was up a pawn and I should not be in any danger of losing. Even though my opponent was a pawn down, SuperMac did have good compensation for the pawn. My king was out of play at a3. SuperMac's king, however, was very well placed at the center. SuperMac then played 41...Rc5, which was an inaccuracy that lost some of the compensation my opponent had for the pawn. Clearly the strongest 41st move for my opponent was 41...Ke5. I replied to 41...Rc5 with the move 42.c3 and then my opponent finally played 42...Ke5, but in that position it was a mistake, which combined with the mistake 41...Rc5 would have allowed me to get a clear advantage. I had two good moves to play 43.Ka4 and 43.Rd2, neither of which I chose to play. I moved my king to b3, with the idea of getting my king to protect the pawn on e4, so that I could free my rook to other tasks. It was the wrong idea and I should be happy with a draw from that point on. The game went on evenly until I blundered and played 46.b3?? The diagram below shows the position after SuperMac's 45th move Rf7.
My 46th move turned out to be the final mistake of the game and after a few more moves, I had to accept my defeat. I have updated the computer analysis to the posts C64 Spanish Game: Classical Variation. Zukertort Gambit and B00 Nimzowitsch Defense: Kennedy Variation. Linksspringer Variation. Not only that but I have also added one new game to both posts. I wanted to publish this post yesterday, but I ran out of time. Poor time management on my part.
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