A Missed Opportunity

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I started the day with a rating of 1425 but promptly lost 12 points playing the Black pieces against an opponent who was only rated at 1393. Even though I lost, I had excellent chances of winning after White's 12th move. I failed to exploit the vulnerability of the White Knight on c3. Figure 1 shows a screenshot.


Figure 1

I should have captured the pawn d4 with my Knight but unfortunately I didn't. Again I'm not noticing my opponent's weaknesses. Once White moved the b pawn, the Knight was unprotected and my Queen was bearing down on it. Better still, the capture of the Knight would come with check. I would have better keeping the King in the centre of the board and not castling as I didn't have enough defenders, especially after my disastrous 20th move where I forgot my Knight was threatened by the pawn. I've embedded the game below:


After this loss I played two very odd games in which both my opponents seemed to be intent on losing. Overall, with one loss and two "gifted" games, I ended up with an overall gain of 7 points for the day. My rating is now 1432.

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