A simul with a titled player - Cris Angel tries again

And AMAZINGLY enough, I focused well!!  Sure, I lost - but let's review my goals:

1.  Focus as much as possible.  Feel that I am doing my absolute best given my skills and abilities.

2.  Do NOT give the opponent an easy win.  Make him work for it.

Well.... an IM is going to have an easy win against me, no doubt.  But I didn't lose in ten moves.  I actually made it a lot further than I thought I would.   I lost one of my center pawns.  My poor center pawns.  I forget when they're not defended and opponents gobble them up.  One of these days, I'll remember to keep them safe.  In the meantime, IM Squarology, if you're not familiar with him, has done some videos.  I stumbled upon these one day when just browsing and "loitering" on the site and I found them to be quite entertaining!   I do recommend viewing them if you haven't seen them before.

After the game, IM Squarology was kind enough to make a few comments.   He said that I didn't need to lose material and I need to watch out for unforced errors.  (that's just constructive criticism with which I wholeheartedly agree).  On the positive side, I was told that I developed nicely and gave an interesting game.  I couldn't ask for more than that so this game goes down in the SUCCESS column for Cris Angel!  Wheeeee!!

Here we go.   Worth noting, this was played at a "fast" (for me) time control of 20 minutes/10 second increment.  Remember, I'm the one who loses on time in 45/45 games.  I had to try to move faster than usual - AND.... I actually got further than I do with many of my 45/45 games.  Unfortunately, I don't think very fast, not at my level, so I missed some things.  I agonized on whether to castle queenside or kingside.  I will explain in the annotation why I did what I did - and I think that turned out to be a mistake; however, this was a mistake that I don't "mind" so much.  I have to learn these things by doing and thus, sometimes I have to do things and get burned in order to see. 

I did NOT donate any pieces!!  That's a huge plus, too!

Enough from me.  Here's the game.    Comments welcome, of course, but PLEASE note my pathetic rating and bear that in mind when commenting.  Thank you. 



Comments

  • 3 years ago

    ChessvsAliens

    you can pick up something from my draw with an IM :

    http://www.chess.com/blog/ChessvsAliens/drawing-an-im---im-kacparov

  • 3 years ago

    NM aww-rats

    nice write up!

  • 3 years ago

    Suvel

    great effort Doctor! You gave it all you had and that's what counts. :)
    Good job! 

  • 3 years ago

    LimpSpider

    Here is my two cents on the game.

    In such positions as your opening, I like to play 4...Bd6 and ignore the doubled pawns on the c-file after Bxc6 bxc6.  At least White's LSB will not have the a2-g8 diagonal on which to terrorize the king if castle KS. 

    8..Nf5 is not a mistake, as fianchettoing the DSB would severely weaken the KS (after f6). 

    9...Bb4+ loses a tempo and closes much possibility of a future attack on the DS at the White QS. I prefer ...Nxg3 hxg3 which although gives White a good open h-file, rids him of the Bishop pair. This could also have been done on move 11, after White's 0-0, and White would have a bad open file on the h-file, or a bad diagonal f2-a7.

    16...h5 looks better to me, because it, with a g-pawn push, gives an eventual open file to the Black h-Rook, which, combined with the Bishop and the Queen eventually, would be quite powerful. 

    17...Ne7 looks bad. Your variation Nb8 looks to me to have more chances. It keeps defenders on the QS.

     

    All in all, Nice game! I doubt I could have done better, especially with that time control!

  • 3 years ago

    Gunners2004

    Dr_Cris you should be very proud of yourself! You put up stiff resistance against your titled opponent, the only minor point was castling queenside, which you have dealt with in your entertaining blog.

    Concentrate on the positives from the game, like the solid position you set up allied with the good co-ordination between your pieces - bottom line, you certainly didn't make it easy for your opponent!

    Congrats

  • 3 years ago

    Martib11

    IMs aren't meant to be beaten ;P Even though it superficially looks ok after for example 13...Nxg3 (Grabbing a very annoying Bishop)14.hxg3 O-O, I think that you soon would have got some nasty problems with your pieces beeing rather awkwardly placed (especially your dark squared Bishop, which looks really bad). Probably you should have considered playing 10...Bd6, after which the position doesn't look to bad after all. Although he does have a pawn, and he is after all an IM.
    But hey, I have some quite traumatic memories myself from playing an IM in some highly tragicomical blitz games, so I think you really deserve to be congratulated on holding on as far as you did Smile
    Nice and entertaining annotations, by the way!

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