Recapping Week 2 of the ChessPathways "Master Simul" - 3 mating attacks!
Week 2 of the Master Simul has drawn to a close, and so far I'm exceeding my expectations! 25 more results came in and I scored 22/25 in these games, bringing my total score in the Simul so far to 34/38.
(Over 100 games are still ongoing - and if you haven't challenged me yet, you're welcome to get in on the action! Send me a Daily Chess Challenge or post here to show your interest, and be sure to visit chesspathways.com for exclusive content! It's free to join, and I'm analyzing some of our members' games for free!)
Let's start with my game against @NYCosmos. I got a lead in development but it took some thinking to figure out how to exploit it. In the end I found an idea with an exchange sacrifice, leading to a huge attack!
Everyone knows that one of the main advantages of the Ruy Lopez is that white can get castled on the kingside very early, but have you ever seen white castle queenside in the Ruy Lopez? Well...you have now! Right when I thought a win was assured, @Nexim put up a lot of resistance and gave me the chance to blunder the win away...but my attacked crashed through first in the end:
I enjoyed playing the following game in the Hedgehog Sicilian as well. I closed the center at a key moment, prevented black counterplay, and built up my attack until black cracked under the pressure. Good job making me think, @aadimes - there were a few moments I was scared your pieces were about to break free!
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So, 3 games, 3 examples of me shredding the black king! But not everything was smooth sailing. In the next edition, we'll be looking at my 3 losses in week 2, the mistakes that led to them, and most importantly, what we can learn from these losses. Everyone who's watched my Game Analysis videos on chesspathways.com knows that I'm never satisfied with just "calling a blunder a blunder" and moving on...there's always a line of thinking that led to the blunder. That's why I insist on players sending me their annotations or thoughts on a game before I help them analyze it, and I'll hold myself to the same standard!
Looking forward to exposing my blunders to you all in the next edition.
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P.S. ChessPathways members will have received the position after 20...Na5 (in game 2) as a puzzle in this week's email (if you haven't received it yet, don't worry - it's coming)! If you looked for a way forward for white and found 21. Nf5 gxf5 22. Bxf6 (winning the queen because 22...Kxf6 runs into 23. Qxf5#)....congratulations. You did better than me.
Somehow I missed Qxf5 mate at the end of that line, and tried as hard as I could to make 21. Nf5 gxf5 22. Bh6+ work, with the idea to take away the f8 square, force the king to the h-file, and somehow organize a mate along the h and g files with my queen and rook. But that pesky ...Nh5 move is there, and I couldn't find a way to dislodge the knight fast enough to stop black counterplay!
Finally I found the 21. Nf5 gxf5 22. Qh3 idea. Much fancier than needed, finding a double attack (Qh6+ and Qxf5 are both threatened) instead of winning the queen directly, but it got the job done 
