Ah, chess. Infuriating, maddening, addictive and endlessly complicated. Join me as I try to escape the noobhood. Today, I've got this short game - that gives me hope of analyzing it fully. It's 3+2 blitz (3min time for all your moves, you gain 2s with each move). Metadata:
[Event "Rated blitz game"] [Site "https://lichess.org/qleFd4pn"] [Date "2024.08.22"] [White "Shiraa_Salahia"] [Black "hario_grindset"] [Result "0-1"] [UTCDate "2024.08.22"] [UTCTime "10:44:15"] [WhiteElo "1590"] [BlackElo "1548"] [WhiteRatingDiff "-6"] [BlackRatingDiff "+32"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "180+2"] [ECO "A40"] [Opening "Horwitz Defense"] [Termination "Normal"] [Annotator "lichess.org"]
1. d4 e6 { A40 Horwitz Defense } 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Nbd2 Qb6 6. Rb1
I have to admit, I am sadly underprepared for 1. d4 as black. Being a French player, I just try to get the same pawn structure and hope for the best. Even though there are some very crucial differences, at my level you can get away with not caring about them at all.
My opponent played the London. Bishop out, knigts out, I don't recognize this particular variant. Seems standard enough for me. But I am not feeling threatened by some vicious prepared attack in this phase.
My first decision is whether to capture the pawn on d4 now or not. This pawn hunting can bite you in the ass. While there was no intermittent danger, I didn't like it as I thought it was too risky. One continuation ends like this:
6. ... cxd4 7. exd4 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 Qxd4 9. Bb5+ Bd7 {I am losing castling rights anyway - I can either move or get rid of the lightsq bishop which I'd like to do as a French player} 10. Bxd7 Kxd7
Looks like this:
Basically, I cannot castle, even castling by hand will take a lot of time. I don't have that time, my pieces aren't developed, while whites pieces are. Queens and rooks are still on the board, so I don't feel safe walking with my king straight into the center. Moreover, my queen is out and a target (white can kick it with a bishop or a pawn or a knight!). So I am thinking that white would be very happy to get this for a price of the pawn. Engine says that it's ok (+0.2), but the engine is a scumbag and we won't listen to it anyway.
Happy to have dodged this. Game continues.
Let's begin a series of weird decisions!
6. ... Bd7 7. c3 cxd4 {Finishing the pyramind and now I took? I mean, it's ok, but why?} 8. exd4 Nge7 {Blocking my bishop from development, yay!}
I don't get it. I know I should keep the tension and develop and I just didn't do it. Fortunately it's only an inaccuracy here. I followed by a briliant plan of blocking my natural bishop development and locking it in. Practically preventing myself from castling short. At this point my only advantage is the confusion of the opponent. I am down on the clock as well.
Game continues from this point:
9. Bd3 Nf5 10. Qe2 Nce7 11. Ne5
I gambled that the London player has no plan (as they usually do - I know I didn't have any when I was playing the London). So I was able to rotate the knigts without any further damage. Naturally, they placed the knight on the beautiful e5 square.
Ok, so.. what do I do here? My queen is in a weird spot, my bishop is blocked, I have no attack, and I am underdeveloped. White should castle kingside, I won't get there. They should also start pushing on queenside (IMHO).
11. ... O-O-O 12. O-O Rg8 13. b4 Ng6
Bad ideas are better than no ideas, so let's just castle into the impeding attack! Note: this is not a good move. It blunders Nxf7 which is a fork forking two rooks. My opponent missed it, so I moved one rook to safety. Probably the wrong one though. And as mentioned above, my opponent started pushing queenside. Let's just unblock the bishop.
Now we have reached the critical position:
Here I thought, that white has only one move and that's to capture the knight with the knight (Nxg6). Surprisingly, the engine agrees with me, yay! This just simplifies everything and there are no more tricks to be talking about.
Another line of thought was to keep the pressure up and keep capturing:
14. Nxd7 Nxf4 {both queens are threatened} 15. Nxb6+ {sadly, this is with check, so white can escape with the queen}
Obviously, I don't want that, so after knight captures the bishop, I recapture the knight with the rook (probably). Now white should somehow address the threat of Nxf4, capturing a free bishop. There are couple of squares that don't give the bishop up outright. The idea in my head was to get rid of it with the f5 knight ideally so that the g6 knight can go to f4 and fork the queen and the bishop.
14. Nxd7 Rxd7 15. Bg3 Nxg3 {and the pawn guards the square I wanted, damn}
So that doesn't work either. Probably the best thing in this variation is to play something like Bd6, which gets rid of white's dark squared bishop as it's an unpleasant attacker aimed at my king.
However, my opponent was due a blunder too and he captured on f7, threatening my rook. The sad reality is, that I can ignore it completely, as I capture the undefended bishop on f4 with my knight and threaten both the queen and the bishop, so he doesn't have time to capture my rook. That was the first time I had any advantage according to the engine (and I agree).
14. Nxf7 Nxf4 { White resigns. } 0-1
I am not sure why they resigned, but I suspect that the game might have continued like this:
15. Qf3 Nxd3 {engine wants to reinforce the knight and let white capture the rook to create an attack} 16. Nxd8 Qxd8 {that's apparently not good for me, I don't get it though}
Another variation that the engine prefers:
15. Qf3 g5! 16. Nxd8 Nh4 {attacking the queen again, trying to get it away from the lighsquare bishop at d3} 17. Qe3 Nxg2 {opening the king up and attacking the queen, protected by the second knight} 18. Qg3 Qxd8 {finally recapturing the knight}
Somehow, black is up two pieces for the rook in this variation and the pawns are equal. Black king looks much better too, other than that it's a mess. I doubt I would be able to convert this. I guess the plan is simple - king is open, I am castled queenside, pawnstorm attack.
If you'd find a couple of more moves, you might end up here:
19. Rfc1 h5 {activate the rook for white, pawn storm for black} 20. Bf1 h4 {try to get rid of the knight on g2, but it's slow - attacking queen by h4} 21. Qg4 e5 {Queen tries to hide (the options are not good), discovered attack from the bishop} 22. Qd1 g4 {Queen has to run, keep on storming, casually sacrificing the knight}
The continuation is weird - queen has to run, black sacs the knight just for the heck of it. Somehow this is +6 for black. I don't get it. I really don't. I guess the black's attack is just too good. But the position looks good to me.
Despite me making numerous mistakes it took only one bad move from the opponent to turn the game around. Chess do be like that sometimes. Full game embedded below:
PGN:
[Event "Rated blitz game"] [Site "https://lichess.org/qleFd4pn"] [Date "2024.08.22"] [White "Shiraa_Salahia"] [Black "hario_grindset"] [Result "0-1"] [UTCDate "2024.08.22"] [UTCTime "10:44:15"] [WhiteElo "1590"] [BlackElo "1548"] [WhiteRatingDiff "-6"] [BlackRatingDiff "+32"] [Variant "Standard"] [TimeControl "180+2"] [ECO "A40"] [Opening "Horwitz Defense"] [Termination "Normal"] [Annotator "HarioGrindset"] 1. d4 e6 { A40 Horwitz Defense } 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 c5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Nbd2 Qb6 6. Rb1 Bd7?! (6... cxd4 7. exd4 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 Qxd4 9. Bb5+ Bd7 {I am losing castling rights anyway - I can either move or get rid of the lightsq bishop which I'd like to do as a French player} 10. Bxd7 Kxd7) 7. c3 cxd4?! {Finishing the pyramind and now I took? I mean, it's ok, but why?} 8. exd4 Nge7? {Blocking my own bishop from development, yay!} 9. Bd3 Nf5? 10. Qe2 Nce7 11. Ne5 O-O-O?? 12. O-O?? (12. Nxf7 Re8 {fork the rooks} 13. Nxh8 {resign}) 12...Rg8 {fix the fork} 13. b4 Ng6 {threaten the bishop} 14. Nxf7?? (14. Nxd7 Nxf4 {both queens are threatened} (14... Rxd7 15. Bg3 Bd6 {get rid of an attacker} (15...Nxg3 16. hxg3 {and the pawn guards the square I wanted, damn})) 15. Nxb6+ {sadly, this is with check, so white can escape with the queen}) 14...Nxf4! { White resigns. } 0-1