With a thread about "garbage" players and other such nonsense, I thought I'd post this game a very humbling loss of mine against a player I completely dismissed -- I scored the win for myself before the game started and boy was I in for a surprise: moral of the story: Play the board, not the rating!

As it turns out her husband played sicilian dragon against her all the time, it was the opening she knew best. Her rating was provisional... what her real rating will end up as I have no idea, I expect it'll be well above 850.

very big of you to post this

wow, u have definately come far since then though.

Ditto, if we only had such sportsmanship in both playing and forum-posting wise, I doubt we'd be sloshing into the latest riches which unavoidably harm this community's cohesion. Furthermore, the final inclination to actually post a possible ending line even after you resigned was prime.

Wholehearted kudos, sah.

This is an excellent and humble post.  NEVER RELAX WHEN YOU GAIN AN ADVANTAGE!  This cardinal rule should never be broken, and is the reason, in my opinion, for most upsets. 

Super cool of you to bite the bullet and "air" this one.  If I had a nickel for every time I acquired an easily won position against some 1400, only to then just start 'playing moves' and lose the game, I could probably retire.

"I've learned that game ending blunders VERY VERY often come right after a "winning" move..."

!  So true.

I once saw--or heard about it actually, at a USCF tourney where I was playing--a 900 beating a 2100!  The opening went 1 e4 Nf6 2 e5 Ng4 (!)...and the expert actually allowed his opponent to take the move back.  Then he ended up losing! (ouch).  You'd have to laugh to keep from crying, I guess...

I was playing in a USCF tournament not too long ago against a 500 rated kid ( im 1763) so I play him seriously since I dont want my rating to drop, but this kid knew his openings. he even had a better position than me at one point, but in the heat of the middle game I complicated things and checkmated him in about 20 moves. but he played well for being 500! it was the first time I played such a low reated player and I didn't expect that much out of him.

I guess you cant underestimate anyone!

haha and for tony,

I did something like that once I was playing an 1800 rated player and I sacked a piece in the najdorf which led to me being up in material in the end. I knew the game was won so I played the worst move possible, a wrong pawn push. which cramped up my pieces and lost me the game

Just a little note about the opening since we are both dragon players.

  6..........Bg7 ?! isn't the best move because of   7.e5..dxe5 8.fxe5..Nh5 9.Bb5+...Bd7   10.e6 with advantage  I had a game continue fxe6  11.Nxe6...Bxc3+   12.bxc3....Qa5   and my position as black although not instantly loosing was not fun

     best is       6.f4.......Nc6 =

Great post.  So many times i've been trounced on this site by players ranked under me.  "Oh, this guys 200 points under my rating.  Easy."  (Gimly mated in 12)  "Sweet!  I just forked his king and rook."  (Gimly mated soon thereafter)  Ratings.  *grumble

Lol that tactic was sneaky, just the kind of one that you would never expect an "850" to do either. It's pretty short but easy to miss if you're careless as it's not a common pattern. But yeah she must have been much higher than 850, though she did blunder the piece.

First off id like to congratulate you on postng this game.  It shows maturity and ahem "cahones"...and humility most of all.  Very big of you!  Its always so easy to post a nice win, but it takes something even more to post a loss, and especially a loss against someone half of your own rating.  

This says alot about you and your character.   

Ahem. The word is spelled "cajones." It's Spanish.

But otherwise I agree with everything in this post.