King of Counterplay

In this article I wrote about my progress in the previous quarter. While my rating for Rapid games remained unchanged, my play has improved since last year. My performance stats clearly indicated a better performance against higher rated players. 
One thing that stood out was that a significant portion of my wins consisted of games that were not obvious wins. In fact, some of them I had no right to win. 

My performance in lost positions was excellent. My tenacious willingness to fight on, my ability to create chaos, and my tactical skills combined, were enough to achieve amazing comeback victories. The only logical conclusion is that I am an absolute King of Counterplay.

Editorial note: an argument could be made that it wasn’t just skill that led to victory, even going as far as saying that Duckfest was just lucky. Unfortunately, this claim will not be investigated, due to limited resource availability (i.e. time) and a total lack of willingness to do so. As a result, all evidence supporting the luck-hypothesis will be ignored. The narrative that Duckfest is a genius, and that no luck was involved in winning these games, remains uncontested. 

In this article I present to you my 4 greatest comebacks in Rapid this quarter, some maybe my best comebacks ever.

Comeback stories

Game #1 My biggest comeback
Never before or after have I managed to win a game, from such an unwinnable and desperate position as this one.

During the game this position felt like the worst moment I ever experienced.

In this position

• There is no way to prevent a-pawn from being taken.
• Consequently no way stop their a and b-pawn from promoting.
• My King has no legal moves.
• Neither of my pawns can move.
• My only moves available are Rook moves, literally.
• None of the Rook moves were appealing in any way.

I’ve been in desperate situations before. Many games I’ve been staring at positions where my opponent had overwhelming material advantages. But never have I been so devoid of counterplay. The position was hopeless. 

My strategy
The game provided no rational or reasonable argument to keep playing. In my article ‘Resign or Hand Over to Hikaru’ the reason I gave was ‘to practice’. My ‘strategy’ was to keep trying to find the best moves, regardless of winning chances. Essentially, there is always a best move to be found and I wanted to see if I could find them. I should not have won that game. Yet, I did. 
Never resign.

This is how it played out

The full game review of my game against @shmerpoo can be found in this library.

Game #2 Textbook Turnaround
This one, I’m actually proud of how I did. The game overall was solid, with both players playing at around 75% accuracy.  I did exactly what I needed to do when behind and I got rewarded for the effort.

On move 13 I made a huge tactical blunder. Two (slightly) inaccurate moves later, I’m behind a full Knight (+3), but the position is already +7 according to Stockfish. Next move, their Queen takes my pawn and my King steps out of danger. 

In this position

• They have more material, I’m behind a Knight and a pawn
• They have more time. I have 6 minutes left vs 8 minutes for my opponent
• All is not lost, still plenty of opportunity to create chaos.

We play some more moves and by move 20 (after 20. Rxf6), the engine gives a +7.48 evaluation and my opponent has a +4 material advantage. 

My advantage, tactically, is that I have two Rooks actively involved in the game, while they have neither of their Rooks on active squares. On the other hand, they have a Knight involved in the action and that’s just a nightmare to evade move after move. A Knightmare, if you will.

My strategy

My focus was to play as actively as possible and keep the initiative, trying to prevent my opponent from catching up in development.

On move 21, I attack the Queen. 

On move 22, I attack the Queen. 

On move 23, I attack the Queen. 

On move 24, I attack Queen. The Queen retreats. My position has neither improved nor gotten worse, but I’m satisfied with my piece activity vs theirs.

Some more shuffling.

On move 27 my opponent blunders. 

Hard.

From that moment on, my position was better and I was able to convert the position. 

Another editorial note: On move 57 I had a dominant position with a Rook and 2 pawns vs 4 pawns. However, I had only 40 seconds left vs 3 minutes 22 seconds for my opponent. In my attempt to play fast, I made a mistake on move 65 and the evaluation went from -51 to +1. Had my opponent spotted my mistake the game would be over. Lucky, I guess?

The full game review of my game against @jugacri can be found in this library.

Game #3 Last minute massacre
I’ll be brief on this one, as I posted the game before in my Q2 Progress Update. On move 14, for the duration of exactly 1 ply, there was a moment where I had a -5 advantage, that I failed to notice. Instead I played a move that turned the tides completely, resulting in a + 4.48 position.

My position remained very bad for 10 to 15 moves but the best position to feature is this one.

In this position

• Their Queen and Bishop are teaming up to mate me with Qh6 followed by Qg7#. 
• My clock shows 1:38 minutes, my opponent still has 2:57

My strategy

My strategy, as in the previous examples, is to go for active play, creating attacking opportunities rather than defending. With a hint of desperation.

My solution was to smack my Bishop into his pawn structure. 
@KevinOSh did the review of this game and he described this move as follows:

“Computer doesn't like it but I don't care. This is exactly the time to create some counterplay”

I’m definitely enjoying this commentary.

Game #4 Sudden Strike
We were evenly matched in this game more or less. There was a tactical opportunity for me around move 17-19, but I missed it, getting us back to equal positions.

Until I made a terrible mistake on move 25. After spending almost 15% of my time (going from 3:40 to 2:58 minutes) on calculating the best line, a clear plan had formed in my head. But, as soon as I played it, or rather 1 second after, I noticed that I moved my Knight to a square where it had no protection. I messed up my move order. Instead of accepting my loss, I made my position worse and we got to this position.

In this position

• My King is in a somewhat unsafe position
• Their Knight is attacking my Queen
• My Queen has no squares available that still defend the Knight, I’ll lose the Knight
• Unless they play Nc3, forking my King and Rook
• Stockfish evaluates the position as -10.1

My strategy

My play from this position onwards was far from impressive, but I guess it worked. My strategy was built on two key ideas

Defending my position is useless, it’s unholdable and I’ll lose.

Attack their King and try to find a checkmate. It’s my only chance and with any luck it’ll distract them.

The full game review of my game against @mx_alex can be found in this library.

Commentary

As satisfying as some of these surprise wins are, there is also some reason for concern. During the second quarter of ‘22, in Rapid, I only played 34 games. To be able to showcase 4 games featuring comebacks like this, means I’m structurally behind in a lot of my games. 

Earlier I said, my goal was to improve my rapid play and this month I’ve played mostly Daily games. That has to change, I’m going to focus on Rapid from now on. I think. Maybe after my current Daily tournaments are finished.