Chess Match: 18/8/24

No post for almost two months and the current post itself was conceived last week but has started to be written only today. Anyway, that's routine here, let's get to chess. I did fancy myself as an above average chess player once reaching 1781 rating on Lichess. But have since lost my touch with the game. Played a good game last week after a long time and decided to at least write a post on it. So here is the game:

5. Qxd4

So a Scotch's Game with everything exchanged, these generally go slow for me.

7. ... Qc5

Black offers a Queen trade, I am up on development and have a centre pawn. But trading will let him develop a Bishop for free, so can't do.

An interesting line the computer suggests is Nb5 Qxc4 Bxc4 Bb4+ b3 Ba5 b4 Bb6. If black does not comply he either falls to a c7 fork or loses a piece or gives up on casting. But I will not blame myself for not seeing it. Instead, I went with Bb4 which is also acceptable. 

9. ... d6

Black wastes a turn taking my Queen allowing the development of the Bishop. Now I have three species developed, control the centre and am ready to castle. Next, I went to easily beat the opponent right? No, I just got giddy and the match was tied, but first let's see how it is. The biggest opportunity for me is the c7 fork. Now our Knight has two paths.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

And I took the worse one- Nd5. Black just gave up castling by Kd7, now I have nothing, my "attack" is dead. Had I gone the other road I would have still been able to eat up the f pawn. But alas I am now telling this tale with a sigh. 

13. g3

A blunder. It makes no sense to distort the pawn structure and restrict the range of my Bishop when i could just have gone Bg3. In game Black could, but didn't, have just taken the Bishop, destroyed my pair and blunt my edge.

16. ... Be7

So Black did the trade and both of us had extended pawns on opposite sides, I was still leading the development. I saw the long White diagonal and neither of us controlled it. And my monkey brain sees that and immediately puts the bishop on it without calculations. 

22. ... Kaxc8

I missed a couple of tactics in the moves between them and a few changes later I am but equal with black in a 2 vs 2 Rook Endgame. My paws are more advanced and I have the open file too. I will give my self a slight slight edge. Stockfish puts it as +0.4, so yea my assessment is good enough. t was either here or in a few other moves that I offered a draw which was rejected. Some normal Rook Moves and pawn trades followed by a few checks by me, but nothing drastic enough to merit being written down.

35. h5

I have two open files for my rooks and black have one, but my harry the h pawn seems to be picked up soon. Also Rg2+ might be a dangerous move to miss in any calculations. 

39. Re1 

I dropped the Rook to back row as to me black slowly seemed to gaining steam. I was on the defensive when the worst that came from Re6 is Black being able to force a draw. 

46. Rh1

More blunders by both sides and exchanges later now both sides have a single rook and couple of paws. While almost equal, things are better for our Henry the h pawn than anyone else. At this point, my only idea was a King Walk and exchanging the rooks and then offering to draw again.  

49. Kxa4

I think Black took the short end of the stick with the pawn exchange. But with perfect play the situation would be a draw. But we are real men and the Black pawn is nearer to my King and I can't get any sneaky checks, I have a small edge at least psychologically. But in the game, I was still in a draw mindset and a draw I did get. 


I won't claim that writing this did a great service to my game, nor was it a particularly beautiful game. The only take away being that I got the result I was aiming for and not the result I could have achieved. I played an aggressive opening and then forgot to calculate some early game tactics. Not forgot, I was just too lazy. This laziness is why I don't win games and this is why I did not write here for last two months. But not being lazy, Christian's Journey To GrandMaster Blog inspired me though I was not able to recreate that structure.