My first adventure with the Samisch

In 2016 I decided to try a new opening as white against the King's Indian Defense. I had usually played a main line, castling kingside, but I always seemed to end up getting cramped and into a totally defensive position.

So I decided to try the Samisch. In this game, the very first time I played this opening, I faced a significantly stronger opponent in Robert Melander. We were playing in the Thursday Knighter at the Chess Castle of Minnesota.

What I really like about this game is the queen sacrifice. I saw it almost instantly, because I had been doing tons of Tactics puzzles on Chess.com, and of course you always look for a queen sac as a puzzle solution!

This is me at the Chess Castle of Minnesota.

Here's the game, with my annotations.