I learned a lesson in the Marshall

Dear chess community,

as the new year has started it was time to think about what I want to achieve in chess this year and this time I set myself the goal to reach 2100 ELO in rapid chess (on chesscom). To achive this I decided to start this chess blog to document my progress and to help me become a better chess player through analyzing my games. The idea is that I will publish an annotated game that I have played during the week, first without looking at the game with an engine and then re-analyze the game with the engine to check my own thoughts.

For the first episode I brought with me a game that I played in the Marshall Gambit on January 3rd. At this point of my chess career I always accept the Marshall. I will not give any comments during the opening but start from move 15 where my book knowledge roughly ends.

Looking at the Stockfish analysis of the game it confirms to me that I needed to play Nb3 in the critical situations at move 20 and 21.

Before I close my first blog post I will give some finishing thoughts. What this game has shown me is how important it is in the Marshall Attack for White to develop the Queenside pieces. This is always a difficult task as they tend to step on each other's toes a bit. I will try to remember for my future games the plan to develop the Knight via d2-b3 and activate my dark squared Bishop.