Tricky Moves in Chess and Life

Hi Chess Friends,

I haven't been playing much lately because I had a recent wedding and honeymoon, followed shortly by a lot of work and a move of apartments. The picture above is Mrs. CoachJKane, with some of our many moving boxes. 

I relaxed by playing a game against the computer the day after the move. Because I didn't have internet set up yet, I played against one of the engines that comes with ICC's Dasher software. I find this particular opponent interesting to play becuause, unlike some beatable computers, it doesn't seem to be programed to intentionally play non-best moves. Instead, I think it's designed to play the engine's top move each turn, but after only one second of "thinking time." As a result of the nearly instant moves, it only plays at a master-type level, instead of the 3000 + level that many programs can reach these days. 

I don't frequently blog about games against non-human opponent's, but one of my favorite chess blogs, Dana Mackenzie's "Dana Blogs Chess," covers human-vs-computer games frequently, so I'll share my game here.

I'll start off with a couple of tricky tactical moments. Neither opponent played the best move in the first two cases, but I did find the right option in the third case. After the puzzles, the full game is at the bottom.

Enjoy

And here's the whole game.