My opponent in today's USCF tourney game was rated over 1800, which puts him more than 350 points above me. I went into the game figuring I didn't stand much of a chance, but then he blundered early, and I probably should have won. But I blew it, mostly due to lack of direction in the middle game, I think, though a pretty blatant blunder in time trouble at the end prevented me from at least getting a draw out of it. Believe it or not, this is actually the first time I've lost playing this blatantly unsound gambit in a tournament.

 

Any comments and analysis would be appreciated.

 

 

First of all, it has to be said, 7 Bf4??

Not sure I agree that 10...a6 or 11...d6 are mistakes. It looks good to be able to next play 11...d6 while preventing a trade of bishops. You can then consolidate by putting the bishop on e6.

I think you may have rushed in the endgame. Since you have a clear advantage you should cut off any possible opponent's counterplay first. All the opponent's weaknesses will remain.

Yeah, time trouble was the key factor at the end. I'm a pretty slow player, and I was down to about 8 minutes left on my clock in a 120 minute game when I played 42. ... h5. If I'd had 20 minutes left, I probably would have spent an additional 20-30 seconds blunder checking before that move and would have realized that it sets up the skewer.

 

--Fromper 

13. ... Rd8 is just accepting a passive position. It's nice to have an extra piece, but if all your pieces are guarding your doubled d-pawns, it's not really helping you win. I would gladly part with a pawn there in order to have active bishops and rooks instead of bishops and rooks that sit behind pawns. Since I have an extra piece, I can probably win back the pawn.

 

25. ... Bxg5. You give the reasons in your annotations, but I think it's worth restating. You play "move X" because you're afraid of the consequences of "move Y". I think this is a typical mistake and it's one you can eliminate from your play if you recognize it. It seems you never considered the consequences of the move you did play. Your move attacks the e-pawn, so you can probably see the f4 push pretty easily and then the f5 push shouldn't be too hard to see (based on the other things you saw in this game). 

Thanks for the comments, Loomis.

 

I did consider that I'd probably need to give up one or both d pawns, but I defended them a little just because I didn't want to give them up too quickly in a way that would favor my opponent.

 

As for the recapture on the 25th move, I really did blunder check that move, and overlooking the f5 push was just an oversite. I'm getting better at blunder checking on every move (except in time trouble), but I'm not perfect.

 

--Fromper 

And the followup: The local club started a new tournament this week, and I ended up playing the same 1800+ rated player again, this time as white.

I won.

--Fromper