
Getting a big W versus a nemesis on Chess.com
Always feels nice to accomplish a goal. Getting through tough matchups - finding a way to win against an opponent in front of whom we never seem to get an advantage - can be really exhilarating. I recently achieved a personnal goal of that kind, having fun playing dailies against one of my nemesis. It might not have been the most exciting faceoff, but the way it developped was interesting. Let's delve into it, and tell the story of the game, otherwise nobody will. As Gary Kasparov said :
<< Computer analysis exploded this lazy tradition of analyzing chess games as if they were fairy tales. Engines don't care about story. They expose the reality that the only story in a chess is each individual move, weak or strong. >>(1)
For this "modern fairy tale" narrative, it all started with 1. d4 - not a big surprise - going into a Nimzowitsch Defense. Multiple innaccuracies were panned by StockFish but what can you do when you are not a cyborg A.i. ? You play moves that are not seen up to par for the "omniscient" computers.
After move 5. Be2 (which in the graph above weirdly doesn't get its "?!" evaluation), we get to a point where things are either gonna turn loose - with pieces falling like flies to the assaults each side would be unleashing - or the position will sink into tactical positional sludge.
The pawn on the G-file is about to try to destabilize my f4 bishop, but that was without taking into account the twists of fate that were destined to happen. First, the bishop will dodge the assault, and then we'd watch 2 simple pawns getting pushed for more innacuracies in the eye of the greater gods of chess.
At this point the inevitable setup has been put into place, the minor pieces are about to start their waltz before the Queen takes her turn at the "Grand Bal Masqué" !
Bishop takes the knight f3, answered by a recapture by my E-file bishop.
It is at this point that the destiny of my opponent almost sealed itself, the Knight's retreat in the face of an assault by the D-file pawn might have been the tipping point. The unrelenting assault that will take place won't leave the court very pleased.
Following a castling move deemed to be a "miss" by the evaluation, Blacks retorted by pushing their H-file pawn, leading to the first great move of the game : 10. Bh5+. The rook cannot impose its will since the Queen would recapture, provoking a loss of material for Blacks. Without any other options because of the peculiar pawn structure, the king is forced to move to d7.
One great idea leading to another, the Queen takes on the diagonal inhabited by the runaway monarch, and we end up with a dire situation for my opponent. Being forced to send pawns to the slaughter in defense of their ruler, things are turning sour in a hurry.
After pushing a first pawn in his defensive manoeuvres, the opponent sees the hungry Queen keep her forward advance going, unrelentless is her desire for triumph.
As a last stand, the poor E-file pawn jumps into the lane of the Queen but to no avail, it is a formality, there are no escapes for the Black king who ends up mate in 13.
The pedigree of the game isn't a shiny one. The execution was a fun. It was a match that only left us with a willingness to play more duels. I lost my fair share and we've drawn a handful, but it's never boring !
Kasparov had previously said on the subject of game analysis : << Paradoxically [...] other top players [...] often made more mistakes in their commentary than the players had made on the board. Even when the players published analyses of their own games they were often less accurate than when they were playing the game. [....] The biggest problem was [...] the players would fall into the trap of seing each game of chess as a story [...] >> (2)
Let me know how I fared in this process of modern times storytelling about the "royal game"! Have I fallen into the trappings described by GM Kasparov in my retelling of this game?
Sources :
(1) "Deep Thinking - where machine intelligence ends and human creativity begins"
KASPAROV, Garry. 2017PublkicAffairs/Perseus Books pg.139
(2) ibid. pg.138