1616: Still Climbing

 At last I played a game with zero blunders but in which my opponent blundered in time pressure.

I now have a ranking of 1616 which I'm happy about.

Here is a link to the game with a screenshot showing my opponent's fatal mistake. Black with 1:31 left on his clock failed to see that my Knight could take his Queen and so promptly resigned.

A Comedy of Errors

This game deserves special analysis because it truly is a comedy of errors. To begin with, I was matched as White against a 1647 player. I knew that if I won this game it would be a significant boost to my rating. On move 10, Black made a critical error by playing Nd6?? Figure 1 shows the position.

Figure 1: game

After Black's retreat of his Knight, I fixated on Black's h pawn, seeing it was inadequately protected but first I thought that I'd advance my c pawn to c5 and dislodge the Knight. What I failed to see was that by playing Bg5, I would win the Queen. It's obvious in hindsight. The Black Queen is sitting there hopelessly exposed with White's two Bishops bearing down on it. By moving the Knight, Black had freed up the g5 square for my Bishop. At this point, the game was mine but I never played that most obvious of moves.

After my 11. c5?? the evaluation bar dropped from +6.0 to +2.5. Despite the missed opportunity I was still in a superior position. The next critical point came on move 20. Be2 threatening the Black Queen. At this point the evaluation bar had risen to +3.7 but after 20. ... Bg6? it rose to 5.8 because the Knight on h4 had been abandoned. See Figure 2.

Figure 2: game

Black should have played 20. ... Nf3+ but didn't and so I captured the Knight. Black then played 21. ... Bh3 and the evaluation bar climbed to +6.5. Black was now lost. I was a piece and two pawns up. All I needed to do was retreat my Bishop to g3. So why didn't I. At this point, I still had 6m31s on the clock so I wasn't under any real time pressure. Instead of moving my Bishop, I advanced my g pawn to g3. This inaccuracy caused the evaluation bar to drop to +4.1 but I was still in a much better position.

The next critical point came on move 28 where Black's intentions are clear. See Figure 3. He wants to capture the pawn on h2 by lining up his Queen and Rook. I realised that by moving my King to g2 and then my Rook to h1 I can defend the pawn. This is a rather passive recourse however, the engine recommends moving my Rook on a1 to b1 and responding to Black's Qh6 with f4. After my 28. Kg2? the evaluation bar fell from +3.7 to +1.8. However, my position is still better.

Figure 3: game

The next critical point occurs on move 29 when Black should have played 29. ... Rc8 forcing my Rook to move to b2 to defend the f pawn. Instead Black played 29. ... Qf3+ and here is where I made perhaps my biggest blunder. I simply didn't see that I could take the Rook and instead I retreated my King to g1. The evaluation bar is down is +1.0 but I still have an advantage. I'm three pawns up even if I am under attack. If I exchange Queens, I should be good.

Figure 4: game

Predictably Black now plays 30. .... Rc8 and I need to move my Rook to b2 and secure the defences or Qd2 is better to guard the e3 square. Instead I play the truly shocking 31. Rxa7?? and promptly lose the game. Checkmate is now unavoidable after Black plays 31. ... e3. Normally I defend fairly well but I failed miserably here. I still had over three minutes on the clock so again I wasn't under extreme time pressure. See Figure 5.

Figure 5

Of course, it's only a forced checkmate if your opponent realises it's a forced checkmate and Black didn't. He played the inexplicable 31. ... Kg8?? and I can save the game with 32. Re8 or better still 32. Qd2. Instead I'm oblivious of the mortal danger that I'm in and play 32. c6?? and once again the game is lost after 32. ... e3. Black still has over four minutes on his clock so there's no hurry but my pawn advance has seriously unnerved him. He tries to bust open my position with 32. ... Rxg3+ and after 33. hxg3 Black's belated e3 now leads to instant checkmate. See Figure 6. I didn't even see this initially because Black promptly resigned. 

Figure 6: game

Figure 7 shows the wild gyrations of the game. I led throughout the game but came perilously close to losing two times at the very end. This is not a game to be proud of and I need to think long and hard about the opportunties I squandered and the blunders that nearly cost me the game. 

Figure 7

Three Blunders Versus Four

My rating continues to slowly climb. It's now 1519. In my latest game, I made three blunders versus my opponent's four. Figure 1 shows my first blunder in response to Black's f6. I intentionally moved my Bishop to e5 when it was attacked by the Knight. I had intended to provoke Black's pawn move and then retreat my Bishop to g3 - which I did. This was regarded by the computer analysis as a blunder. Prior to playing 8. Bg3 my position was assessed as +4.7. Afterwards it was just +0.7. I was still slightly better but I had squandered an opportunity.

Figure 1: link to game

The recommended move was Nh4. Ah! It's easy to see now how much better this move is but I had already made up my mind to retreat the Bishop and didn't assess the new position. Fortunately for me, Black continued to make poor moves and I quickly won. As my opponents get stronger, I can't afford to throw away opportunities like I did in this game.

Back in the Saddle Again

The day following my twin disasters as reported in my previous post And Just Like That, I managed to lucky win a blunderful game and reclaim 9 rating points. I played around 5am in the morning having gotten up and had breakfast at 3:30am. I watched Agadmator's review of the Round 7 Gukesh versus Arjun classical game and the Carlson versus Nakamura Armageddon game. So I was fresh and in chess thinking mode.

That didn't stop me making the first blunder of the game and overall I made three as opposed to my opponent's two. Figure 1 shows my final blunder.

Figure 1

As can be seen, if not completely blind, the White pawn on f4 is pinned and so Black's move is simply Rxe5. Fortunately, Black missed this and was tempted into playing Qc2+. My mistake was to be obsessed with doubling my Rooks on the h file. While this is a splendid tactic, it's useless unless the pawn on h6 is undermined and that's only going to happen if White advances either his f or g pawns. This open h file often occurs after a Knight attacks and captures the opponent's Bishop after it retreats to g3. My timing was wrong. FIRSTLY, advance the pawn or pawns to within striking distance of the opponent's h pawn and SECONDLY double Rooks.

Figure 2 shows the statistics of the game:

Figure 2

As can be seen, it was a game of fluctuating fortunes and it was more that Black lost rather than White won. At this 1500 level, you can blunder three times as I did and still win but against higher rated players I will be punished instantly. I need to raise my game. I usually emerge from the opening phase of my games with equality or better but then I often dither about and make poor choices that allow my opponent to gain the initiative.

Meeting Blunder With Blunder

Even though I ended up winning this game, I missed a wonderful opportunity when Black blundered. This is shown in Figure 1 where I thought I'd blundered by allowing my Queen and Bishop to be forked by the Black pawn.

Figure 1

I captured the pawn with my Bishop, reasoning that I'd at least get two pawns for my lost piece. However, this was a blunder because capturing with the Knight leads to a catastrophe for Black if he captures my Knight. The Black King is brutally exposed and must block the Bishop's protection of the Knight. See Figure 2.

Figure 2

I totally missed this unfortunately but it goes to show how great opportunities can be missed. I'm currently rated at 1464 after two wins and one loss for the day.

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.

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 to the defence I'm going to adopt if White plays d4. I'll experiment with the French Defence. Remote Chess Academny has this video and another video that discuss the opening. Let's see how I go with this. I'd like to play a game that is free from blunders on my part. There'll be inaccuracies of course.

Unpunished Blunder

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 control. Figure 1 shows my progress. Since the start of May, I generally played each day. If I lose a game, I immediately play again in order to try to recover my lost points. So far I've been successful. 

Figure 1

Here are my chess-related posts from Pedagogical Posturing blog:

1. More Rapid Games on 14th May 2025
   
   
2. Google's NotebookLM on 23rd March 2025
   
   
3. First Rapid Chess Game on 16th March 2025
   
   
4. Shocking Chess Defeat on 16th March 2025
   
   
5. Science Fiction Nonsense of 26th May 2024
   
   
6. Chess Puzzle on 8th October 2023
   
   
7. Indonesian Language Skills on 2nd February 2023
   
   
8. Lichess: Another Win on 8th November 2021
   
   
9. Chess Puzzles on 19th October 2021
   
   
10. Stored Games on Lichess on 17th December 2020
    
    
11. LICHESS.ORG on 13th May 2020
    
    
12. An Historic Win on 16th March 2020
    
    
13. A Win Against Fritz on 19th January 2019
    
    
14. Chess: A Personal History on 8th January 2019
    
    
15. Toroidal Chess on 7th January 2019
    
    
16. Chess: An Unlikely Win on 24th February 2018
    
    
17. Chess: The Fried Liver Attack on 4th March 2018
    
    
18. Chess Diagrams on 2nd November 2017
    
    
19. CHESS: Ding Lirin - China's highest ranked player ever on 8th November 2017
    
    
20. CHESS: HOW TO EMBED A FULL CHESS GAME IN A BLOG on 10th December 2017
    
    
21. CHESS: The Budapest Gambit on 10th December 2017
    
    
22. CHESS: FISCHER versus TAL on 10th March 2018
    
    
23. CHESS: THE ELEPHANT GAMBIT on 7th March 2018
    
    
24. CHESS: THE MARSHALL ATTACK on 22nd February 2018
    
    
25. CHESS: Nodirbek Abdusattorov - 2nd Youngest Chess Grandmaster in History on 3rd November 2017
    
    
26. CHESS: A BUMBLED DRAW on 23rd December 2017
    
    
27. CHESS: The Rules for Drawing on 4th December 2017
    
    
28. CHESS: Holding On on 28th December 2018
    
    
29. CHESS: More Master Mauling on 25th November 2017