Missed opportunities - Blog 1#

I hate analysing my games. The main reason for my irrational fear of them is simply that I hate seeing all the missed oppurtunities in the game. Chess is full of missed oppurtunities. From big things like how I missed that checkmate in 3... to small things like how I missed going up a pawn...

The second biggest reason I hate analysing my games is simply that I get far too lazy in looking over them. Since I got my platinum account on Chess.com it is all too easy to analyse correspondance games and press the computer analysis button to show you how to play chess (without actually showing you how to play...)

Since this is my first blog (of hopefully many) I want to begin looking over my games properly. No more getting lazy with the computer! Obviously the computer needs to iron out blunders, but a constant reliance on it will not help me improve. 

Game 1#

I love the King's Gambit! For white it is a way for all your pieces to flow majestically around the board. The explosion of play makes for interesting and romantic games. It is no wonder that such an opening was so popular in the 19th century.

I played this game very recently in a King's Gambit only tournament in which players start the game off with the King's Gambit. This game was against the strongest player in the group:

I may be down a knight and a pawn but I have a major lead in development and the plan to attack the pawn on f7 to slay the King. Black is now in trouble. His pawn will be lost very soon so now he needs to weather the storm and hope that the knight advantage will help him in the endgame. 

This is my first oppurtunity to take advantage in this game. This was the time to strike when the iron is hot! To attack with an overwhelming force! 

A missed oppurtunity... Or so I thought. My idea of forcing the bishop to a square it didn't like would prove to open up another path of oppurtunity:

Perhaps you can see what I should of done:

A missed oppurtunity... By now you can probably guess the theme of this blog... 

Again I missed a key attack against my floundering opponent. I resigned after this knowing that my attack had gone down the drain.

In life we always have many missed oppurtunities, but it is by learning from our mistakes that we do not repeat the history of them. Whilst that was a crappy cliche I hope that this game analysis was useful to you as it was to me.