The game has appeared in the blog before, but I have added diagrams and comments that were not present on the original publication of the game. I have also since my last post, put all the mate in x number of moves puzzles in a replayer, so that the person solving them can check the answer by using the engine in the replayer. Lot of puzzles have been removed or relocated in order to improve the accuracy and perhaps the quality of the puzzle pages. So maybe that can be called phase two of the blog changes. The next one being the one where I go through my already posted games and do the commentary and the opening classifications all over again when necessary.
This game started on December 26th, 2015 and finished on February 18th, 2016. This was my 2nd game after coming back from a break of few months from playing at the Queen Alice Internet Chess Club. Also my second loss in a row and the game that dropped my rating back under 2200. I had a great start for this game, but unfortunately I started to play too sloppy moves which were not able to hold the advantage and by move 17, the position had started to be quite even. Perhaps the first time during the game when things started to go wrong for jizaias was when my opponent played 7...Nf6 in the diagram position below.
Admittedly I was maybe playing too happily for a draw and I did not mind if pieces were traded off the board. In my younger days I would have always played to win, but these days I am maybe too willing to take draws against higher rated players. If I play against lower rated players, I still fight on and will not agree to a draw unless the position is a clear draw. The next position to be shown in the diagram below has been taken after jizaias' 14th move O-O. I played the passive move 15.c3 and allowed my opponent time to play 15...e6.
The game continued evenly until my opponent played 22...Qe8 in the diagram position below. That move gave me another chance to fight for the win. I played the sloppy move 23.Qd2 in reply and with that I let go of some of my advantage. The best move for me was 23.Rh3. Jizaias made an even worse move in response, 23...Ra7. It was a huge mistake that could have lost the game for my opponent. I had the great opportunity to play 24.Bxh6!! Unfortunately I did not find the right idea and played 24.Rh3 instead.
My 24th move was a good move, but not as strong as 24.Bxh6. In the diagram position below I played 26.gxh5, thinking that I had a good position. I have to admit that I did not see the move 26...e5, at that point I was almost certain that I will lose this game. At the very least I understood that I had messed up a bit and my position was not as good as it was before. Actually the position after 26...e5 is roughly even.
When I had three pawns for the bishop, I was a bit more confident again of my chances in this game. I did not follow the right path and my chances for the draw started to be just a distant dream the further the game went. The final downhill for me started when I played 41.Re1 in the position shown in the diagram below.
I did not play 41.Qe6+ most likely because I did not know whether or not trading the queens is good for me. Had I played that I might have been able to hang on in the game with accurate play. Jizaias replied with the most accurate move 41...a5 and then I played 42.Qd3, which was the final nail in the coffin and the game was definetely lost at that point.
