The moves that we didn't play

Hello and welcome to the reboot of my blog! 
There's three chess puzzles below!

During the last  years I've been slightly less involved with chess, but I'm coming back to it, as chess players always seem to do. Therefore, it also made sense to me pick up my blog. I've always liked writing and what better way to get more fun out of your games than sharing them?

The title of this blog is "The moves that we didn't play", and I've chosen it because I'm under the expression that chess games are just as much about the moves that aren't played as those that are. In this I'm more or less echoing Kasparov who once said:

"The highest art of the chessplayer lies in not allowing your opponent to show you what he can do."
 
In Chess, planning ahead requires us to envision all that could happen, and then planning our way through this labyrinth of possibilities. Fun and challenging as this is, it's not easy and even Magnus Carlsen recently said that sometimes "the game seems to be more about who is the least bad player than who is the best".

While I'm willing to suspend my disbelief and accept that even Carlsen feels that way sometimes, I think this quote is (unfortunately) much more apt for me and players at my level. In honour of this truth, we will look at three unplayed moves during one of my recent games.

Let's get to it!

 Game part I

 Puzzle

 

Puzzle

Annoyingly, I did see what I missed here during the game saddling me with this feeling of self-loathing for playing too fast and the sensation of 'now I really must win or it's just too painful'.

Game part 3

Puzzle 3

this trick was completely missed by me and (luckily) my opponent as well. Shows how it's never over until it's over!

And the final part of the game

That was it for now, I hope you enjoyed this blog! I'm intending to keep blogging on a more or less weekly basis.

Feel free to comment!

Over & Out,

RC_Woods