The first game in this post was played at Chess.com in May, 2014. This is one of the several hundred Daily chess games I have played there. The first position of interest in my opinion can be seen in the diagram below. My opponent, hppchess, played 12.Ba4 in the game. Retreating with the bishop to a4 does not really make sense. The bishop is not doing anything useful there. The only way for the bishop to really get into play is to move it to c2 later. It was a better idea to place the bishop to the b1-h7 diagonal immediately. Even if it may result in few exchanges, it should be played.
In the game I played 12...Nxe3, which won the bishop pair, but trading the good knight for the bad bishop was not a good idea. It was a better idea to play 12...f6 and try to undermine the central pawns and maybe get the rook into play. Since I was not able to play the strongest move, the game continued in a relatively equal manner until we reached the position after 26...Rb7 that you can see in the next diagram.
Hppchess played 27.Bf3 in the game, with the idea of playing e4 in a convenient moment. However, the bishop blocked the f-file and made it more difficult for the rooks to do anything active. I replied with 27...b4 and took advantage of my opponent's inaccuracy. The game continued with the moves 28.axb4 Qxb4 29.e4 and then I moved my rook to d8, worried about the move exd5. It was, however, a mistake and the only move that seems to keep my advantage was 29...Qxb2. The game continuation was only good enough to an evenly played game. One of the biggest blunders of the game was played by hppchess in the diagram position below. My opponent played 38.Qf2 and the game could have come to a quick end, had I found the crushing reply 38...c3.
I chose to play 38...Rd3 instead, which is not a horrible move, but pales in comparison to 38...c3. I was clearly in the driver's seat up to the move 42.Qd2, which was actually a huge blunder that would have allowed me to take the winning advantage, had I played the correct move 42...Qe4. I played 42...Qxd6 instead for some reason in the next diagram position. After my 42nd move the position should be roughly even, but it is probably easier to play with the white pieces.
I did get one more chance to play for the win. The next critical position can be seen below. Hppchess moved the queen to e3, which could have cost my opponent the game, had I known how to take advantage of that unfortunate move.
By playing 50...Qc2+, I could have been on my way to victory that is if the computer analysis is to be believed. I played 50...hxg3+ instead and the game ended in a draw after a couple of more moves.
Game number two. The game below was played in a team match called 2. It was played between BULGARIA and Magnus Carlsen Group. I was playing on board 3 for the Magnus Carlsen Group in this match. The match ended with a score 27 - 7 in favor of BULGARIA. In this 17 board match we lost both games on boards 1, 5, 6, 11, 15 and 17 due to timeouts. So 12 points were basically just given to our opponent for free. That is too many points lost on an unfortunate thing like that.
The next diagram shows the position after my 14th move Qxe5. This was perhaps the first time in the game when one of the players was given an opportunity to get a clear advantage. I was able to find the strongest reply and also the only move that gave me any advantage, 15...Qxc3. After the obvious 16.bxc3 the pawn structure was changed for the worse from crisdim's perspective. I continued with the move 16...Ra3, which not only attacks the pawn on c3, blocks the pawn on a2, but also prepares the doubling of rooks to the a-file.
The game continued to be clearly in my favor for a few moves, until it came time to play my 21st move in the next diagram position. I played the move 21...Ba4, which does not make much sense, it places the bishop on a bad square and ends up being a waste of time. Crisdim played 22.Nd4 in reply and improved the position of the knight. I then played 22...Kf8, a good move that would have been much better a move earlier. Crisdim then made a huge blunder 23.Nf5, but unfortunately I was not able to find the strongest reply 23...g6 and played 23...Rc2 instead. The move 23...g6 would have driven the knight back and the amount of possible squares for the knight would have decreased, making it a worse piece. The move I played was a decent one, which kept at least a clear advantage on my side.
The position after the rooks had been exchanged is one that I should not have lost. Then again I am capable of losing pretty much any position... :-P The chess engine clearly preferred my position up to the move 29.Ke2, but I am not so sure that it would be so easy to think that during the game. To me the position does not seem to be clearly better for the player controlling the black pieces. I would evaluate the position to be closer to a draw than anything else. I had the right idea of advancing my pawns on the queenside, but I did not do it in the best way possible and therefore my opponent had some chances he or she would not have had otherwise. I played 29...c6 in the next diagram position and the game started to fizzle out towards a draw even according to Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT running on 4 4GHz processors.
The game continued with the moves 30.Kd3 Ba4 and during those moves the position was roughly even, but then crisdim played 31.g4, allowing me to be on the advantageous side once again. My advantage did not long to evaporate because after 32.g5 I went for the move 32...fxg5 and the game was played evenly again. I should have played 32...bxc4+. Both players then continued playing accurately and a draw should been the result of this game, but then I made a huge blunder in the diagram position below and threw the game away with the move 41...Kd8??
I do not remember why I did not go for the move 41...Kd6, which to me seems now the most obvious try. 41...Kd8 was probably just a hasty move that I had not thought about enough to understand the problem with it. We played a few more moves, but when it came clear that I was lost, I resigned after 44.d7+.
Game number three. This game was played in a team match called Rematch. It was played on 47 boards between LATINO and Space Angels Calculating Thermodynamic Shift In Andromeda's Cluster Of Infinite Bright Stars. I played on board 11 for the latter and I lost my other game against cedula1066. The match ended with a score 37.5 - 56.5 in favor of Space Angels Calculating Thermodynamic Shift In Andromeda's Cluster Of Infinite Bright Stars.
For this game I went back to my old lines for some reason and I am glad that I did so. I am still more comfortable in these kind of positions than I would be in the variations of Spanish that start to go 3...a6 instead of 3...Bc5. On his 7th move, cedula1066 made an interesting decision of not taking back on d4 with the pawn and instead he played Re1. I think that had to be a mistake. It is much better to play cxd4 there than Re1. It is true that he got some play out of it, but I was able to defend against the attack quite easily. Cedula1066 had some compensation for the material up to the move 12...fxe5, but then my opponent played 13.Qh5 in a position that can be seen in the diagram below.
The game continued being clearly in my favor until we reached the position after 25.Rf3+. It can be shown in the diagram below. I played 25...Ke8 in the game because I wanted to keep my bishop attacking the pawn on e4 and not place it to f7 where it is pinned to the king. That being said, I should have played 25...Bf7 because it would have avoided the problem with the move 26.Rc3. I would have lost the pawn back and material would have been even, had my opponent indeed played 26.Rc3.
In the game cedula1066 played the much more passive 26.Re3 and my opponent was in a lost position. However, after 29...Ne6, cedula1066 started to be the one with initiative again. On move 40 the situation on the board had become easier to play and I was quite confident about my winning chances. I may have started with the wrong idea on my 40th move though, I wanted to put my king to e5, because I thought it would be well placed there, but later on I noticed that I was wrong and had to retreat to d7 again and after 46...Kd7 I was not sure about my win anymore, due to the poor moves I had made. I started to finally go with my king to the right direction with 48...Kc6 and the plan on how to win this position started to form in my mind. That being said, I faced an important decision after 50.Nf5 that could have been the turning point of the game. I considered my options of moving the rook or taking on f5 with the bishop. I thought that not taking on f5 was more dangerous of the two options, so I took on f5 with my bishop. I was very confident that my pawns are much more dangerous than cedula1066's f-pawn. The game continuation proved my thought process to be correct. I did face another important decision on move 56, should I protect my a-pawn or just push the c-pawn. Defending the a-pawn seemed like a simpler win, so I played my rook to a7. There could have been a plan for my opponent to reply with Rg3 and plant the rook to g7 on the following move and I think that it would have been the best option for my opponent to try to make things as difficult as possible for me. I might have blundered the game away, had the game continued like that. Especially since there was only one way to win after Rg7 that involved pushing the c-pawn.
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