This one was played in a tournament called 2014 August Grand Seven Fourteen II at Red Hot Pawn. This tournament went very well for me, only one draw and two losses and all other games I won. My losses and draw happened when I controlled the white pieces, I won all my games when I had the black pieces. One of the losses I had was against blither, the opponent I faced in this game. I could have won that game too, had I not missed my opponent's threat of mate in one... I have to remind myself of these things from time to time in order to check the board fully before making my moves. I managed to win the tournament with a two point difference. The first big mistake of the game was seen when I played 13...c6.
The move was really bad because of the continuations seen in the game notation. The continuation suggested in the analysis would not have worked had I played 13...Ne6 because I would able to answer the move Ng4 with g5, due to the fact that the knight protects the pawn. When the knight is not on e6, the move g5 would not be possible due to Nxh6+ Kh7 Bxg5 and I would lose two pawns for free. While the move 14.Ng4 was a good one, 14.Nxd4 first might have been even better. For the most part of the remainder of the game, I was in huge problems and it was likely that I would lose this game. Even though things looked really awful from my point of view, I did not throw in the towel. Only due to the odd blunder of my opponent, 27.Qxe4, my resistance was rewarded.
Being up the queen for the knight was sufficient for me to take an easy win from this game.
Game number two. This was my first ever game at the FIDE Online Arena and as it started out with a win, it was a good start. At this time I was hopeful that I may easily maintain 1700+ rating there and get the title after 50 games. This was a 15 minute game and I had not played those in months, maybe even years. It is, however, the shortest amount of time that is still counted for the rapid rating so I thought that this would be a good way to play the 50 games. After I had played two games there, I noticed that neither had counted towards the game requirement so I was a bit annoyed by that. Then I started to play tournaments in the hopes of getting those monitored games. It now feels that I was more focused on my games during the first six games I played there, but after that it all went horribly wrong... The first important moment of this game was seen when iron-men played 13.Qh4.
I replied with the accurate 13...Nd4, which attacked the pawn on c2. Iron-men wanted to save the pawn, so my opponent moved the a-rook to c1. Protecting the pawn was actually missing the main point behind the move Nd4. Alas, I also missed it and played 14...Bb4, which let my opponent off the hook. I should have, of course, seen that had I attacked the bishop on g5 with my h-pawn, I would have won material. The reason is that if the bishop moves, then Nf3+ would be possible and the game would have likely ended there to my opponent's resignation. I did get one more chance to get a winning advantage when iron-men played 20.f4.
The move 20.f4 lost the game rather easily, because it allowed me to take the g-pawn with a check and then win the exchange by taking the rook on f1 with my knight. The rest of the game was just matter of technique.
Game number three. The game below was played in the 2014 September Grand Seven Fourteen III tournament that started on September 11th 2014 at Red Hot Pawn. I was on 4th place in the final standings. This is probably one of the most mistake free games I have played in the last few months. If I could play as mistake free as I did in this game, I could get a 2000+ rating at Red Hot Pawn quite quickly and other sites as well most likely. This game only had one critical point in my opinion, the position after 18...Qxd4.
In the game rkmmax played 19.Rb1, which was the game deciding blunder. I replied by taking the pawn on d3 with my bishop, which not only won a pawn, but threatened both rooks simultaneously, so I also ended up winning an exchange. From the material deficit there was no coming back and the rest of the game was smooth sailing for me towards a win.
Game number four. This was played in the 2014 August Grand Seven Fourteen III tournament. I was fourth in the final standings of the tournament. The first move that requires criticism is 12...Qe7. The move did not really change anything in the position, except that the rooks were connected because of it. My 12th move did not lose material, but it did not improve my position either, it was in essence, a waste of a move. In order for blither to take full advantage of the free move, my opponent should have played 13.d4.
Blither chose the move 13.b4, which is inferior move when compared to 13.d4, because after 13.b4, the bishop still eyed on f2 and it might give me some counterplay. The game continued to be played more or less in my opponent's favor until blither played 18.Bxe6. Taking the knight with the bishop allowed me to get out of the pin and my biggest problem in the position was solved.
The next turning point in the game came when blither played 27.Rc1. The rook was placed on c1 in order to protect the pawn on c3, but it also was unprotected at c1 and therefore the pawn on c3 became pinned, so that the pawn on b4 lost its protection. 27.Qb3 was a much better way of protecting the pawn on c3, since the pawn in that line would not be pinned.
In fact, trying to protect the pawn by moving the rook to c1 actually loses a pawn by force. I took advantage of blither's mistake by moving my rook to c4. There does not seem to be a way for blither to prevent a loss of a pawn after that. If the rook on c1 moves to b1, then I could take the pawn on c3. If then 29.Rxc3 Qxc3 30.Qxb7 Qd3+ and the rook on b1 would be lost with a check. There are three more situations that I want to take a look at, first one being the position after 36...Ke7.
Blither made the horrible move 37.exd5, because he or she wanted to play b5 next, but in doing so, it gave my rook more squares to go to because I replied by taking on d5 with my c-pawn. To 38.b5 I answered with the move axb5 because I saw no point of playing Rb6 first, since the game would likely continue 39.bxa6 Rxa6 and the rook would have used two moves to take the a-pawn, when it could have done so with one. Had the rook not been defended at b3, then I would have played Rb6, because in that case bxa6 would not have been played as a reply. The move I chose also enabled me to get the advantage, but it quickly dissipated due to my bad moves and I even made the huge blunder 41...Kc6 that could have lost me the game.
It is rather funny that neither player saw that 41...Kc6 loses a piece during the crucial moment, since blither played 42.Rb6+ and threw his or hers best chance to win the game away. A couple of moves later blither played 44.Kd3, which was my opponent's last blunder of the game. I found the strongest move in reply 44...Bb4, but after 45.f4 I lost the correct path and just took on f4 with my pawn.
In order to keep my winning chances alive, I needed to play 45...e4+. The move I chose led to an equal position, which lasted up to the last move played in the game 62...Kxd4. Interestingly the final position according to the engine is completely winning, but in fact it is a draw. It is one of those positions that are incorrectly evaluated by Stockfish 8 64 POPCNT. It is not possible to win that position if White just goes to h1 with the king, because Black has the wrong colored bishop.
Game number five. This was played in the fifth and final round of the WORLD OPEN RAPID tournament that was held at the FIDE Online Arena on April 6th 2015. The first three rounds went in a decent fashion, I won two out of the three games but my last two rounds went horribly wrong and I lost both of them against lower rated opponents. In this final round I lost against Arena FIDE Master petya007.
So far I have played this line 5 times in the published games, all while controlling the black pieces and I have won 3 (60%), drawn 1 (20%) and lost 1 (20%).
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