Blitzen Beginning

Blitzen Beginning

Coming into the new year, I've been playing a lot of blitz games, and recently, I've been able to reach 1700 in blitz! I usually play more rapid games, but after losing more than a few rapid games, I decided to try my luck with blitz. So here are the last three blitz games that I played to reach 1700. They are all three-minute blitz games with no bonus.

Game 1

In the first game, I was playing with the black pieces against a 1636 from Colombia. Now, he opened with the English c4. Admittedly, even though I play c4 a lot, I don't have a lot of prep on the spot against it. I played Nf6 to begin playing a King's Indian setup with g6 and Bg7. My opponent continued his development with Nc3 and fianchettoing his light-squared bishop. He also played d3 and e4, really cementing his control of d5 and the light squares.

I counteract by playing Nc6 and Re8 to support e5, grabbing control of the dark squares. In the meantime, white is able to castle short and plays h3, which is annoying, as it really takes away mobility of my light squared bishop, as white has taken control of a lot of light squares. So I try to line up my bishop and queen on d7 and e6, but then, my opponent makes a risky decision to pawn storm in front of his king. This causes overextension, but an aggressive attack.

This is where a start making mistakes. When your opponent begins attacking, you need to find a way to counter-attack. But I played Qe7, which is really passive, allowing f5 and kicking my bishop to the backrank. I am able to get a knight outpost in the center of the board and secure it, but it really didn't matter because my opponent was bringing in all his pieces on my king.  Soon, he lined his bishop and queen to trade and potentially infiltrate on the h6 square. I try to stop it with Qf7, but the result is total overrun by the pawns, and my pieces are immobilized. 

Even worse, he is able to completely lock the queenside and center by trading my knight, making it impossible to maneuver except for my knight, which wanders aimlessly. He is able to infiltrate with the knight and check my king. He then targets the weak d6 square, forcing me to try and trade queens.

Game 2

In this game, I was playing black against a 1694 from the Netherlands. He opened with a peculiar opening, the Meises, d3. I have played against d3 even less than c4. I decided to stick with Nf6. Most people like to play d4 or e4 for central control, which is also completely fine.  He continued with e4 and developing both knights. I played d6, first, to prevent any pawn push, then fianchettoed and castled. He also developed his bishops to e2 and g5, to put pressure on my knight. 

I kick out his bishop with h6, and I play Bg4, baiting h3 and bringing my bishop back to e6. White then decided to play d4, with a potential fork on d5, so I took and we have an exchange of a pawn and knight.

What follows is that white then decides to push his e pawn forward as well, but this is a mistake because after Nd7, the pawn is pinned to the queen. He tries to attack my queenpawns with Bf3 and even tries to protect his pawn with Rfe1, but this still loses material after dxe5. I also gain an additional pawn with Bxh3, which reveals a discovered attack on the queen. White almost escapes and is able to recapture the bishop, but I decide to extend my pawns to keep attacking the queen and give time for my bishop to escape. 

From there, I hit the queen with Be6, causing it to move to b4. Then, I positioned my queen on d2 to target white's pawns. But then, white makes a critical blunder with Ne4, which looks good because it hits the queen and threatens a fork with Nf6+. But it loses to Qxb4, as it hangs white's queen. On move 24, white resigned the game.

1700 Game!

This final game was the game that would get me to exactly 1700 rating. I was playing with the white pieces against a 1677 from Canada. You can imagine I was feeling pretty excited to have a chance to climb over that 1700 mark.

I began the game with c4, the English. Black responded with a Scandinavian, d4, which I took and played Nc3, to hit the queen. Black would develop both of his knights, and I fianchettoed my light squared bishop.

I played e3, to play Ne2, but we both missed Nb4, which would've been difficult to defend against. Instead, black plays Bd7 and h5 to begin an attack on my kingside, which I castle into.  Then, after h4, the pawn has the potential to keep pushing and put my bishop in an awkward position, so I played Nf4. We exchange pawns, and black long castles, preparing an aggressive assault.

Black strikes immediately with g5 and plays Bh3 to trade my powerful lightsquared bishop, but this is a blunder and loses a pieces. Can you find why?

What black missed was that the queen was able to deliver a check and fork. I took with Nxf6 and then was able to play Bxh3 and Qg4+ to capture the hanging rook. Thus, on move 15, my opponent decided to resign the game early, as he would've been down a rook on material, not a fun spot to be in. And with that, I was able to get 1700 blitz .

But what were your thoughts on this game? Do you enjoy playing blitz games? Let me know! And keep on blitzen