My King is Dead by Ri_Ya on pixabay.com

Secrets of Trapping Pieces: A Beautiful Loss

KevinSmithIdiot

Updated: Feb 18, 2024, 5:20 PM | 8

Time to chat about a very educational loss. All brought about because I saw a chance to try something I'd never played before but felt I understood. Wrong-o, moose breath! Sigh! It's always the details that bite you in the nether regions.

Before analyzing this loss I'll let you try four puzzles to demonstrate to yourself that you can play as well as or better than this immodest 2300+ rapid player. hf.

PUZZLE-MANIA!!

Puzzle Chess by daniel_diaz_bardillo on pixabay.com

Time to prove you are at least as tactically sound as the 2300+ rated player who reached this point in the game.

Well, that was easy.

What else do I have up my sleeve? How about a banana peel, slapstick moment?

Slapstick by Perlinator at pixabay.com

Can you improve over my mouse slip in this position? What would YOU play here?

Stupid Mouse--You Embarassed Me by sibya on pixabay.com

I still don't know how I managed that mouse slip. Sigh

. And then I had to show it to my coach and explain the inexplicable

.

Lucky for me my opponent did not understand the ins and outs of trapped and restricted pieces. Whereas I have spent most of the past nine months thinking of almost nothing else.

Can White take advantage of the trapped Bishop? How would you have played to keep Black from gaining a decisive advantage.

That would have been problematic

. And a bit boring. Wow am I glad they messed up. I wouldn't have had the same chance to blunder later in the game except for their huge mistake here.

Eventually experience tells. Somewhere around here my opponent was bemoaning the fact their pieces could hardly move.

But now we reach a striking moment!!

Can you say "Zugzwang"? With the correct accent and everything? If you can, consider me impressed.

If you always see it instantly

when it shows up on the board I bow down before you. Me? I just mentally freeze up when my coach brings it up.

Brain Lock by QuinceCreative on pixabay.com

But I'm working on it.

IT'S GAME TIME!!

Secrets of Trapping Pieces: A Beautiful Loss

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