French Defence Victory

-

After a disastrous game with White where I lost 12 rating points, I played a good game with Black using the French Defence which I've decided to use consistently against White's e4. I made no blunders and only one inaccuracy on the very last move, after which White resigned. I was a little annoyed that my last move was deemed an inaccuracy. However, looking at Figure 1, I can see why.


Figure 1

The recommended move was Nexd2 and not the Ng3+?! that I played almost instantly because it forks Black's King and Rook. However, by eliminating the White Bishop on d2, the second Knight on c4 is ready to move to d3 and fork the King and Queen. The lesson to be learned here is to not jump at the first opportunity that presents itself. As in this case, there was a better opportunity in the position and I had plenty of time to consider it as I was not under any time pressure. 

White was clearly uncomfortable with the French Defence and that set me up for a relatively easy victory against a slightly higher rated opponent. My accuracy was an impressive 95%. Here is a link to the game. After watching Magnus Carlson blunder in his Round 3 Armageddon game against Yu Wei, I felt a little better knowing even the number one player in the world can miscalculate. Figure 2 shows my single blunder is the previous game where I lost 12 rating points.


Figure 2

Instead of passively retreating my Bishop to d7, the recommended move was c5 challenging the centre. White should have taken the Bishop with his Knight but instead retreated his Bishop to d3 which the computer deemed a mistake. Here is a link to the game.

Popular posts from this blog

Unpunished Blunder

-
Image
I've started a new blog dedicated to chess. My previous chess related posts have been on my Pedagogical Posturing blog and I'll link to these posts at the end of this current post. In the meantime, Diagram 1 shows a screenshot of a position that was reached in my latest game as White on lichess.org  in a 10 + 5 time control. I'd just played Re7, attacking Black's Queen, totally forgetting how vulnerable my Queen was. All Black needed to do was to play Qxe7 and it was game over for me. Fortunately, Black didn't spot my error and instead played Qb6, after which I had an easy win. Diagram 1 Prior to this move, I still had 3:55 on my clock so I wasn't under too much time pressure. The position is instructive because it shows how dangerous it is to have a Queen on the same file as the opponent's Rook. Furthermore, the Queen is unprotected. I've embedded the game below. So far I've managed to steadily increase my rating to a 1413 for the 10 + 5 time contr...
Read more

Almost at 1500

-
Image
After beating a more highly rated player (1547), my rating jumped 10 points to 1497 and so I'm knocking on the door of 1500. I managed to avoid any blunders but committed three inaccuracies. The critical point in the game came on Black's 22nd move when he captured my pawn on g3 . I'm embarrassed to say that I never even saw it coming because I'd forgotten that my f pawn was pinned by Black's Knight. See Figure 1. Figure 1: link to game. This was a serious oversight on my part. The Black Bishop had been bearing  down on my King since move 18. Fortunately for me, this was Black's undoing. Three moves later he resigned. See Figure 2. My Queen check freed up the e4 square for my Knight where it forked the Bishop and Queen and even protected the f2 square. Figure 2 Figure 3 shows the statistics for the game: Figure 3 Even if I allowed Black to play Qxf2+ , there are no further threats once I move my King. Black overestimated his prospects with the move he made whi...
Read more

Handling Time Pressure

-
Here is a crazy game for which I made the following comments on Lichess: Another comedy of errors in which I made four blunders compared to White's five. I should have lost but managed a draw by three-fold repetition in severe time pressure. My mistake was advancing my e-pawn instead of my d-pawn. The opening was a Sicilian after all and Black needs to advance his d-pawn if he hopes for equality. After White's advance of his d-pawn to d5, my position became hopelessly cramped. It was a miracle that I was able to salvage a draw but once again it reminds me to never give up no matter how hopeless my position looks. A draw by repetition is what saved me in this game. I was happy with how I handled the time pressure. By the way, both of us received zero points for the draw. I haven't played the Sicilian for a while, preferring the Caro-Kann or Pirc Defence, both of which lead to fairly cramped positions for Black. However, before I start a game I should have a definite idea as ...
Read more