A game from a bit over thirteen years ago features some tactical errors. Not by any means a perfect game which might be actually a good thing so that one could learn from the mistakes made in this game and not do similar mistakes in their own games. The first bad decision was made by me on move 14. I played 14...b5, hoping perhaps that my opponent would take with the a-pawn and in that way fix my pawn structure. The move 14...b5 weakened the pawn on c6 a bit, leaving it to be protected only by pieces.
If my opponent, ZaBlanc, would have actually taken on b5 with her or his pawn, I would have been on the clearly worse side of the board. ZaBlanc played 15.Nf3 instead, which gave me an opportunity to get back into the game, unfortunately I failed to take advantage of the sloppy move and played a move that made my position worse again. I should have moved my a-pawn to a5 on move 15, but moved my knight to g6 instead. The problem with my 15th move is that it did not take into consideration the continuation 16.axb5 cxb5 17.Ra6. It should be clear that White is in the driver's seat after that continuation. Both players missed this idea and ZaBlanc then played 16.d4, allowing the position to even out again. For a few moves the game indeed remained to be equally fought, but then with my 19th move I gave another opportunity to ZaBlanc to run away with the game.
ZaBlanc's advantage did not last long, already with the move 23.Qxd4 my opponent threw away the advantage she or he had gained. I replied with a horrible move 23...c5 and I gave the advantage back to my opponent. However, ZaBlanc insisted on continuing the game evenly with the next move seen in the game, 24.Qc4. My first opportunity to gain an advantage came when ZaBlanc played 27.Qd4. I continued with the move 27...Qc7. From c7 the queen attacked both the pawn on g3 and the pawn on c2.
Everything went well for me, until we reached the position in which I played 32...Rxe4?? My 32nd move was only good enough for an even position.
Taking the pawn was a mistake that could have thrown the win away, but the reply 33.Rxe4 enabled my winning conditions again. I did not waste my second chance to get a winning advantage and I was able to maintain my advantage to the end of the game. After my 42nd move e4+ my opponent resigned.
Game number two. This was played at Red Hot Pawn in 2004. This was my 16th correspondence chess game at the site. At the time I am typing this, I have finished 526 games there. When my opponent played the risky looking 17.g4, the first sign of trouble was seen on the board. I moved my rook to f8, which was one of the best squares for the piece. Arian10 continued with 18.Qe6 and then I failed to find a good move and moved my rook again, this time to f6 in order to defend the knight on c6. The strongest move for me was 18...Qh4.
It is no wonder to me that I was not confident enough to leave the knight hanging on c6, because I do not intentionally give free pieces, unless I can see a forced win. Arian10 then played Qe4 and after that I made two disastrous move in a row, first 19...a6 and 20...cxd4 in reply to 20.Nxd4. At that moment I was in a losing position, unfortunately my opponent continued with the move 21.Bxd4 and equality on the board was reached once again.
In order to keep the position even, I needed to play 21...Nxd4. I did not play it and I was heading towards a loss again with the move 21...Rd6?? The game featured one more huge blunder and luckily for me, it was arian10 who played that blunder.
The game continued up to my 43rd move after which my opponent saw that further resistance was futile.
Game number three. This was played on the third round of the WORLD OPEN RAPID tournament that was played at the FIDE Online Arena on April 11th 2015. The game below finally ended the losing streak that had lasted five games. On the next two rounds of the tournament I continued winning, so I finished the tournament with a decent score of 3 out of 5. Actually only four of those games were actually played, so I scored in the actually played games 2 out of the 4 possible points. The game was played rather evenly up to the move 11...Nxh5. With my opponent's 12th move, g3, the game started to look worse for goscinone. I played perhaps the best reply 12...Nf6 and I was slightly better. The game continued with the moves 13.b4 Bb6 and then my opponent's position went further down the drain with the move 14.Kg2.
Goscinone's move was, however, clearly worse than the one suggested in the living diagram above. I should have continued by playing 14...a5, but instead I moved c-pawn to the 5th rank, which was a bad decision and it was only good enough for an equal position. The game continued with the moves 15.bxc5 Bxc5 and then goscinone went downhill again with the move 16.Nb5. Much better alternative was to move the knight to b3 and drive the bishop away from c5. The knight on b5 only attacked the pawn on c7, but otherwise it was doing nothing there. I moved my bishop to b6 in order to defend the pawn on c7 and then the a-pawn started to run up the board with the move 17.a4. The idea behind it was to play a5 next and win the c-pawn. I did not have to allow that and I chose to play 17...a6. A better move for me was 17...Bd7. I still remained on the better side of the board, but only slightly. One of the moves that could have meant a loss was seen on the board when goscinone played 19.Nf5.
Goscinone's 19th move turned out to be the starting point for my opponent's downfall. Even though I played rather poorly at times during the remainder of the game, I still remained on the better side of the board for the last part of the game. The game only ended after I played 48...b1Q. In that position I had a queen, a rook and two pawns against three pawns of my opponent.
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