Hello again, TeamLiquid! I've been looking to blog something again for a while, and hopefully actually contribute rather than repeat what my last 2 blogs did. I saw a blog post someone else did on one of their games of chess and thought it seemed like fun, so I'll give it a try. Here we go!

My opponent for this game is kmfdmm1 - rated 1163 in ELO(vs. my 1315). You may think to yourself "wow, this is quite a difference in rating, this should be a cakewalk". I did. And that posed a lot of trouble for me.

The link for the game is here.

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1.c4 e5

2.d3 d6

I opened with my normal English opening where I control Queenside and he controls most of Kingside. This means that he can string together some blitzes on me, but if he isn't careful I'll whittle away his Queenside and force him into bad trades trying to protect the pawns there.

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What move would you use to deal with this?

3.a3 Nc6

4.b4 a6

5.b5 axb5

6.cxb5 Nd4

7.a4 Be6

Things start getting interesting around move 8. His Knight is forced to move to an awkward spot(the alternative being back to it's starting position or blocking in a bishop and horribly slowing his castling) where it can be forced from its roost by a pawn in a move or two. He strings together a pretty good idea to force me to shift pieces around and trades for one of my pieces. Since I am forced to constantly deal with his roving Knight I'm not given extra moves to develop some of my pieces where I'd like them, and he doesn't fall behind. He could have even taken an important pawn for free if I'd been less careful with my defence.

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Yikes! What could he have up his sleeve?

8.Nc3 Nb3

9.Rb1 Nxc1

10.Qxc1 Nf6

11.e4 Be7

12.Nf3 h6

13.Be2 O-O

14.O-O Ng4

For the next few moves development continues as standard. Both sides try to control important squares, get their pieces into good position and build protection for their King. On move 14 he makes a move which appears to give me a free move. It terrifies me for a minute - normally when my opponent makes a move like this it means that they discovered a hole in my defence. Luckily, in this case, the attack needed an extra move or two to be launched, so I was given time to cover all of the holes, gaining a small advantage.

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15.h3 Nf6

16.Qd2 Qd7

17.Nh2 Bxh3

18.gxh3 Qxh3

19.Qe3 Qxe3

20.fxe3

When the dust settles I'm left with a bit of an advantage in pieces but a completely naked king(which proves to be a theme for the whole game).

Through the middle of the game things feel relatively standard until...

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What move would you make here? That's better than mine.

Nd7

21.d4 exd4

22.exd4 Bf6

23.Nf3 Rfe8

24.Rfc1 Bg5

25.Nxg5 hxg5

26.Bd3 Nb6?

just about any move is better than that travesty. It drops protection on 3 important squares, ruins my pawn structure(you don't want your pawns stacked up because they can defend each other if they are on a diagonal) and lets him gobble up 2 extra pawns. I'm left scrambling to make up for it while trying to hide my King's shame.

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You would think that would be enough.

27.Nd5 Nxd5

28.exd5 Rxa4

29.Rxc7 Rxd4

30.Bc4 Ree4

31.Rc1 Rg4+

32.Kf2 Rdf4+

33.Ke3 Rg3+

34.Kd2 Rf2+

35.Be2 Rgg2

36.Rc8+ Kh7

37.Rh1+ Kg6

38.Re8 Rf5

39.Kc3 Rxd5

40.Bf3

For quite a few moves there are some interesting tactics going on - I can't do much with my Bishop because if it moves he will kill my King.

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Uh-oh.

Rc5+

41.Kd4 Rd2+

42.Ke3 Rdc2

43.Be4+ Kf6

And then something horrible happens. Something horribly awesome. kmfdmm1 forgets about the ability for my Bishop to attack his Rook and King at once(called a fork). But what's this? WarSame isn't taking the Rook? And a devillish plan appears. kmfdmm1 hurriedly tries to block up all of the avenues of attack but only succeeds in furthering his trouble - he is left with no pieces to defend himself. What follows is a predictable hunt for the King. Try as he might, he can't escape a net like this.

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Going down fighting.

44.Rf1+ Rf2

45.Rxf2+ Rf5

46.Rxf5+ Kg6

47.Rf1+ Kh5

48.Rh8+ Kg4

49.Rg1#

1-0

+ Show Spoiler +

I know I write like a historian or something... I've never been an exciting writer - there's a reason I'm in engineering! Any advice on how to spice it up is welcome. I'm hoping practice will be all I need to improve at it. Advice on the chess itself is also welcome.

As a side note, I will probably post some of my losing games somewhere down the line. Unfortunately where I am now, the 1400 and 1500s normally outplay me positionally, until I'm forced to throw pieces into an attack that's doomed to fail in an attempt to catch up. 1100s and 1200s normally beat me through a superior opening, blunder, or similar. When they do outplay me it is always a good game, but it doesn't happen too much(200 points being a LARGE rating difference). I'll try to post all of those I can.

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

November 08 2012 02:48 GMT

Why don't you post the moves played, so that it's possible to actually follow the game?

Which site do you play on? Maybe we could play a few games, offer tips, etc. I'm mostly on chesscube under seemoreglass, but I have accounts everywhere.

WarSame

Canada1950 Posts

November 08 2012 03:09 GMT

The moves played are available in the link in the first line. I'll change the colour of that text to make it stand out.

jdseemoreglass

United States3773 Posts

November 08 2012 03:39 GMT

On November 08 2012 12:09 WarSame wrote:
The moves played are available in the link in the first line. I'll change the colour of that text to make it stand out.

No I mean, put them below the board so we don't have to have 2 windows open to follow the game and the text. Just a suggestion. I see you use chess.com, I'm also seemoreglass on there if you want some games or tips.

WarSame

Canada1950 Posts

November 08 2012 03:46 GMT

On November 08 2012 12:39 jdseemoreglass wrote:

Show nested quote +

Oh, I get what you mean now. Good idea. I agree that on a chess website it would be better to do that, but I figured most of the people here would either not play or only be passably familiar with notation. Now that you mention it, TL does seem to be a place to have quite a lot of chess players. Plus, it doesn't have a downside for me to do so. Up it goes.

EDIT: And yes, to anyone here, feel free to add me. I don't use any site other than chess.com(no need for me, it's not like I'm running out of 1300 rated opponents haha), and I mainly play MM games on it, but I'm down to play 3 day chess vs. anyone here between 1200 and 1800.

lazyitachi

1043 Posts

November 08 2012 07:50 GMT

Thanks.. Much more readable now..
The game was essentially lost for black when he made the unfavorable trade on your H pawn for his bishop and proceed to trade pieces after pieces!
Your exposed king is at no time under attack as his pieces were so underdeveloped.

Anyway, you made safe moves that exploited your advantage to force mistakes from him.

GG no re for him.

Cyber_Cheese

Australia3615 Posts

November 08 2012 08:03 GMT

Just clicked through that game, the ending was really one sided (his poor rooks)
-not a chess pro-

GolemMadness

Canada11044 Posts

November 08 2012 12:31 GMT

Comments:

1) In general, when taking back with a pawn, you want to take towards the center. You don't want to play b5 unless you can take back with the a pawn. When you take back with the c pawn, black now has a semi-open a file against your potentially weak pawn and control of the center. Going for b5 so quickly isn't such a good idea anyways; you should develop your pieces first.

2) 8.Nd2 was forced. After Nc3, he could have played Bb3 followed by Nc2+ and you lose.

3) On move 27, I'd just play Ra1, preparing a5-a6. You're up a piece and have a light squared bishop, so you can control the a8 square.

WarSame

Canada1950 Posts

November 08 2012 18:07 GMT

On November 08 2012 21:31 GolemMadness wrote:
Comments:

1) In general, when taking back with a pawn, you want to take towards the center. You don't want to play b5 unless you can take back with the a pawn. When you take back with the c pawn, black now has a semi-open a file against your potentially weak pawn and control of the center. Going for b5 so quickly isn't such a good idea anyways; you should develop your pieces first.

2) 8.Nd2 was forced. After Nc3, he could have played Bb3 followed by Nc2+ and you lose.

3) On move 27, I'd just play Ra1, preparing a5-a6. You're up a piece and have a light squared bishop, so you can control the a8 square.

Thanks for the advice!

1) I've been trying that opening to force his Knight away from where it would like to be, hopefully gaining a few tempos. While it does this if he plays incorrectly, you are right that it leads to me having major troubles trying to fight for center control when I am giving fewer pawns to fight for it with. I agree with the development part, too, but I didn't feel that was such a big deal because he was forced to respond to my pawn moves, so I mostly saw it as getting those moves in for free. Now I can see the problem.

2) ... Well, good thing he didn't see that, then... that is what I mean when I say I normally lose to 1100 players through the openings. I'm normally not very careful with my defences, particularly early on, so I fall prey to opening traps and the like relatively often. In this case it's pretty funny that I thought I was so smart in protecting my pawn and it turns out that doing so nearly lost me the game.

3) Great idea! That would have been extremely hard to deal with.