Chess Blog

1. d4 Nf6
2. c4 e5


The Budapest Defense. I came across this defense watching some youtube videos and it's more or less a weird mix between an Alekhine Defense and a Scandiavian Defense. I'm pretty familiar with the Alekhine (familiar may be an understatement...its the only defense I play versus e4), so I enjoy playing the Budapest when I get bored of the Kings Indian and the Benoni.



3. dxe5 Ng4
4. Qd4 d6
5. exd6

4. Qd4 was not a move I was expecting at all. Typically, white plays 4. Bf4 or 4. Nf3 to support the e5 pawn, and I have some preparation against those two moves. Here, it seemed like the safest move would be to play 5. ... Qxd6 6. Qxd6 Bxd6 , but then I'm a pawn down, my dark bishop is on a mediocre square, and my knight will soon be chased away with h3...didn't really want to play that. I thought Bxd6 was a losing move due to the c5 pawn push, so I played...

5. ... cxd6



Yeah. Isolated d6 pawn sucks, but my Queen does now have access to the b6 square and my knight has a safe square on e5 to retreat to. My dark bishop gets screwed over, but it's kinda stuck there anyways to protect the g7 pawn for the foreseeable future.

6. Nc3 Nc6
7. Qd1 Qb6
8. e3 Nce5
9. b3 Bf5
10. Nd5



I got control of the a7-g1 diagonal, but I made a questionable move with 8. ... Nce5. I wasn't thinking at all, and I just thought that it'd be nice to exchange knights if he played Nf3. 9. b3 was playing slow on his part, and it looked like he was going to fianchetto his dark bishop, which I wasn't worried about too much...but then he played 10. Nd5, which was a very good move and a very good square for his knight and forced me to make a series of really poor and questionable moves...

10. ... Qc6
11. f3



Qc6 is a horrible square for my queen. C5 would be a much better square if he was unable to play pawn to b4. Qd8 was probably the best move in this situation, but I never liked playing Qe8 so I chose to play a worse move. Speaking of bad moves...

11. ... Qc5
12.fxg4 Nxg4
13.Qd4 Qa5+
14.Bd2 Qd8



...with 11. f3, I had no good squares to move my knight back to since I played Nce5 earlier. Nf6 and Nh6 both result in doubled pawns with no compensation. Moving my queen's knight to e5 was a pretty big mistake now that I look at it, and I deserve it for playing so greedily. As such, I decided to sacrifice this knight for a better position.

Qd4 forced me to put my queen back on d8 with an in-between check. I hated my position here and I was about to throw in the towel if he played Nf3. Literally, If i had just moved my queen back to e8 five moves ago like an obedient noob, I would've been in a similar looking position to what I am in now, with the added bonus that I would've been able to keep my knight. Until...

15. h3 ?!



No clue why he played h3 before playing Nf3. Playing h3 before Nf3 is definitely worse than playing Nf3 first, but he's still up a knight and the best I can do is trade queens, take away his right to castle, and regain some tempo. Considering that I was already down a knight, I was going to take anything I could get.

15. ... Qh4+
16. d1 Nf2+
17. Kc1 Qxd4
18. exd4 Rc8
19. Rh2 Be4
20. Ne3 d5
21. c5 b6
22. b4 a5
23. a3 f5



...some boring / forcing moves later, I played 23... f5. Which was a stupid move considering that it did nothing except trap white bishop. Not only that, it's completely unsupported and I'm going to lose it for nothing. Should've played Be7 and castled (or i should've resigned...either or).

24. g3 f4
25.gxf4 bxc5
26.bxc5



Yeah, definitely regretting not castling. My knight is trapped (again....sigh), I sac'd a pawn for nothing, and I still can't castle. The only thing I have going for me is that my rook on c8 is lined up with his king...so I decided to try and go all-in and open it up at any cost.

26. ... Bxc5
27. dxc5 Rxc5+
28. Kb2 O-O
29. Rxf2



...and then out of nowhere I have a really bad mating attack. At any point, if his king gets to a1 and/or maybe even a3, the game is over. This time I was hoping he would take my 2nd knight, as the whole point of that knight was to stop the king from going back to d1. After After Rxc5+, I had no more use for my knight since the king was now cut off from that square by my rook on the c-file. Luckily for me, he just played "lets-keep-this-knight-even-though-i-am-already-3-pieces-up."

29. ... d4
30. c4 d3
31.Ne3 Rb8+
32.Ka2 Rc2+
33.Nxc2 Bd5#



The knight can''t cover both the d5 and the c2 square at the same time. Easy rook sacrifice into checkmate. The bishop sacrifice doesn't work here because the rook sacrifice is so much more sadistically satisfying . At any point in his last 5 moves, if he had just simply given back some material, his king would've been safe...or at least safer. All he needed was 1 dark square to run to and he would've won.

Link to the whole game: www.chess.com