Live chess: a last minute queen comeback

This was my fourth game of live chess, and though it was still rife with blunders and embarrassing silliness, it finally came together in the end.

 

I played as white, which worried me at first because I'm normally more comfortable as black when playing humans--especially strangers. Playing as black allows me to gauge my opponents' playing styles and respond accordingly, rather than not knowing whether the neat trick I'm trying out is something they've seen a hundred times. As white, I feel a need to be more crazy and unpredictable, which is hazardous if I don't have a plan--and in live chess I basically never do.

 

 

My poor opponent must have been very surprised at move 16 and the brutal succession that followed, because up until then I'd done very little to disabuse him of the notion that I was totally clueless.