Knight on F4... (A tale of missed opportunity)

Simultaneous Exhibition on March 11 2023 Manolito Aguilar (white) vs.  Me Andrew Saxberg (black)

    This is my first recorded OTB game. I entered this game fully expecting to lose spectacularly within ten moves. I get my board all set up and I wait... Manolito starts playing his first move against everyone as white I'm his 15th board, he approaches shakes my hand and plays e4.... Ok!!! I make my move and respond with my bait d5. He comes back and takes it.... (exd5) I play Nf6 finalizing my modern Scandinavian defense and wait.....white plays Nf3 and I respond with e6. My intention is for him to take with dxc6 but he doesn't. Instead he plays d4..... what the hell is d4???

     d4 I just was not prepared for. So I think about for a couple minutes. My conclusion was he wanted to gain access to multiple diagonals via his bishops and queen.  I didn't really want him to be able to attack me on both flanks so I responded with B4+ to try and force him to decide on a plan..... c3 then Bd6 and I am unhappy with my lack of center control and my lack of development. Its time to make a plan. It appears that any initial attack will be coming on the kingside and I feel my loss coming already....  BUT!!! then he plays dxe6 and I respond with Bxe6 and feel like my fortunes have instantly reversed!! 

He makes his escape hatch with h3 I respond with my own h6. Bd3 confirms incoming kingside attack and I feel like his bishops and queen are hogging all the diagonals. I develop Nc6 starting to free up my queenside for the option of long castle when he plays Nbd2 blocking one of his own bishops..... I lash out with Nh5 and he responds with Ne4 threatening my bishop. I play Bf4 and he responds with Neg5. Stockfish Engine eval bar says black is winning.......

I think about this for awhile, taking his knight with my h pawn seems to easy and I don't see a clear path after it. So I say to myself  "look for better Andy"!! (stockfish vehemently disagrees) and I take his back ranked bishop with Bxc1... Eval bar goes from all black to all white.... Rxc1 removes my bishop settling any question on what side he will castle.  (stockfish eval flips back to black) and then I play my most annoying move of the game!!! Nf4 threatening his bishop, protecting my bishop, and threatening to take his knight with my pawn!! I'm so clever!!! (Stockfish laughs at my insolence) and the eval bar yo-yos back to white.

So Nf4 is the story of this game.  White plays nxe6 removing my poor light square bishop... Our hero (Nf4) swoops down and takes whites night with his own Nxe6!! this is getting serious!! We both short castle white plays Re1 making our hero retreat back to Nf4!!!! white plays Bef attacking my other knight and my brain starts to fade. I play Na5???? I believe I was just getting out of the way and trying to bait his bishop with my weak looking pawn but who knows. 

Qd2 attacking our hero!!!! Qf3 steps up to defend!! white plays Ne5 looking for the fork I block with Rad2. white plays Qe3 setting up a battery? I play c5. don't ask I couldn't tell you. white plays Ng4 and play Qg5. 

Manolito had been spending longer and longer to make moves at my board for the last couple moves but this time after staring at it for about a minute he waved his arm across my board and skipped me....?!?! The burst of nervous confidence does not help me at all. He comes back and plays b3. I respond with a fork!! f5!!! Forks are AWESOME holy cow I have forked him!!! I'm now very nervous and exited with plans of telling people of my victory for next several years and I wait.... He returns and plays Bf3, hear me out... I'm good at losing in chess but winning??  Here's where it all starts to go bad. My excitement and anxiety has peaked my brain is now a potato. I lose all semblance of intelligent life and play h5.  He responds with Ne5 and I play Qh4.

Chess is hard. 

g3 attacks my queen so I play Nxh3+ My potato brain pounding away. White plays Ke2. Potato brain fully engages and I attack his queen with cxd4 and white does the same with cxd4. And then it happens. I think about this move for a solid 5 minutes....... and I play Nf4+ (Nf4 has been the right move every other time in this game) I realize as soon as I let go of the knight. What have I done.... Its over, touch move played, so I tipped my king over in shame. Our hero was also our downfall. I waited wallowing in mu sadness for Manolito to come back to my board. He approached looks at my slightly confused and say's "you were winnning"?? I inform him of my blunder and shake his hand. I have never recorded moves before or played anyone rated that high. I certainly have never concentrated on a chess game for three hours!! so that's my story I was playing above my grade and I choked. I am proud that I had him on the ropes a couple of times though.  I went into this game with %100 certainty of losing so when the completely alien prospect of my winning became a reality I freaked out and lost my cool. The lesson or moral of my story is you should always believe you have a chance. And be ready if it happens to you. thanks 

I would like to thank my opponent Manolito for the honor of playing him.

Andy