This one is from my first team match that was played at GameKnot. It was played between les cavalier fous and Grand, Efficacious, Noble, Invincible, Unique, Splendid Army. I played on board two for the latter in this match. We won the match with a score of 1 - 3. Not only did the team name change during the match but also a complete disintegration of the team itself. There is only the team captain left in the team for some reason. I only noticed that I was no longer part of the team when someone from another team send me a message and tried to get me in to their team. GameKnot does not allow players to represent multiple teams, only one is allowed. After I received that message, I checked my team status which was nonexistent. I was surprised by this as I did not receive any notification at all that I did not belong to any team anymore. The game could have ended in a bit better way for me if I had noticed the idea suggested in the analysis on move 41 to play 41...Qb7 instead of the immediate capture of the rook on d5. I should take a moment to consider all my possibilities when playing and not just make an automatic move. To me, the first interesting moment of the game came after the move 9...Be6. Gauxu exchanged bishops, which resulted in doubled paws for me. I was happy about the outcome because it opened the f-file for my rook, so it did not have to move to make it an active piece.
While I prefer to control the black pieces in the position after 10...fxe6, the position may be roughly even. Also the pawn on e6 might be slightly weak. The game continued with the moves 11.Nbd2 Qe8 and then gauxu played 12.c3, which prepared the pawn advantage d3 to d4. I then moved my knight to h5, so that I could land with the knight to f4, which would be a good square for the knight, especially if accompanied by a queen that is on g6. After my 15th move I actually had that position. It was replied by the simple pawn advance 16.g3 and my knight retreated back to h5. In the next diagram you can see the position after my 16th move. In that position gauxu made the horrible move 17.Nh4. Had I found the brilliant move 17...Rxf2+, the game could have ended quite quickly in my favor.
It is rather embarrassing that I did not see the move, it is not that hard to see. Alas, I just reacted to the threat against my queen directly by moving it away. A few moves later my opponent just gave up a pawn with the move 20.b5. I took the pawn with 20...axb5 and now 21.Qxb5 is not playable in view of 21...Nxe4 and White's position would just fall apart. Gauxu most likely realized the problem with the queen taking back and chose to move the e-pawn to e5 instead and in the game continuation my opponent actually managed to get the pawn back.
The game featured many more mistakes from both sides, first of them being my mistake on move 29, when I played h6. It could have already meant a loss for me, had my opponent went for the knight sacrifice 30.Nf6+. It was the first time during the game when I was on a losing position. This was clearly gauxu's best chance to win the game.
My final chance to get a winning advantage was seen when gauxu moved the king to g2 on move 40. The idea behind 40...c5 was to either win the knight on d2 or win the exchange if 41.Rxd5. Gauxu did choose to play 41.Rxd5 and it indeed was my opponent's best fighting chance.
In the game I took the rook immediately like a fool with 41...exd5. What I did not understand at the time was that had I first pinned the rook with 41...Qb7, I would have been up a full exchange and winning the game might have been a simple task, especially if I could also exchange the queens. In the game gauxu was able to get a perpetual check and draw was agreed upon.
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