Played some terrible blitz last night and donked off like a hundred points, that never feels good.
Game One
Game started in the same fashion as a couple of others we have already looked at with e4 d5 e5 c5, and we end up with our Knight pinned:
The thing I used to do is returning the pin with my own bishop on g4, but John Bartholomew introduced me to the interesting idea Bd7, which has a neat point, that if white plays O-O, black can take the pawn on e5 with nice tactics. The second most popular move!
He plays Bxc6 and we take back with our bishop. He then plays c3 and I replied with e6, the normal response in these positions and what I would have played after d4. However, while e6 is at least equalizing, it looks like him allowing me to play d4 is a mistake, and I should capitalize. I’ll try to remember that in the future, as a lot of people prepare d4 with c3.
We arrive here:
We have both used just 15 seconds, and I have a slightly uncomfortable pin. Since I haven’t castled I decide to poke at his bishop, which is something that seems to be a decent rule of thumb. He takes on e7 and I think I have a plan!
We’ve got the bishop pair and whenever I take on d4 he’s probably going to end up with a backward pawn. Additionally, he’s got two knights. I need to open up the position and my bishops should outclass his knights by a lot.
He misplayed the maneuvering game and let me get this tactic:
I made a minor mistake choosing which square to retreat to after taking the knight:
Bb5 gaining the tempo on the rook was best, because I could follow it up with a5 and not lose that pawn. I was just fine with dropping the pawn, but did not consider saving it.
He then goes full savage mode with g4:
Do you see the excellent idea? Bg5 traps the queen!! I did not see it.
Instead I swapped rooks and broke into the f-file.
I did eventually trap his queen, but it was only the fourth best move in the position!
I considered the f4 captures, but went for the material.
He tried to sacrifice his knight for his queen, but the tactics weren’t working:
One more desperation attempt and he gives up here:
Game Two
We’ve got the black pieces and the opponent opens d4 but goes for some weird stonewall attack:
My repertoire is to play Nc6 here, but uh, I forgot. Played cxd4. I did remember that I need to control the b1-h7 diagonal that and if I can trade light square bishops he has basically no attack.
I should have been aiming for something like this:
Instead we got this, which looks fine:
He soon plays f4 for typical stonewall structure, but the guy doesn’t have a light square bishop…
Naturally I jump Ng3 to win an exchange.
I was not sure the best follow-up:
I ended up giving him a terrible pawn structure:
He let me trade queens without much of a fight:
I was down to a minute and missed some nice tactics using checks on the 2nd rank here:
Eventually I traded everything except his one rook for my rook and two connected pawns and made a queen and showed him my K+R v K technique:
Game 3
Black pieces ends in disaster with a move 16 blunderino!
He opens with the c3 london, and I blank that I should play Bf5:
Luckily for me, we transpose and I’ve got a decent position:
Here I should have played either Qb6 or e6. Instead I played h6, which isn’t losing, but does kinda suck.
We got to here:
I remembered from prior analysis that I’m supposed to let him play Nxc6 and it doesn’t really matter, but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do instead. e6 and Nd7 are both good.
He then initiated a queen trade, which gave him a semi-open a-file, but ruined his pawns.
Again, I should have given up the c-pawn, if Nd7 Nxc6 Rc8 gives black a great position, but I was too scared!
Instead I ended up in this terrible position:
I could have played Ke7 and just been a little worse as he gets a nice attack on the queenside, but instead I focused too much on the b-file and played Rb8 and he took it and that’s all the wrote.
