Day 30: Well That is New
Played one Rapid game today. I had the White pieces. It started out as a fairly normal London opening, with the exception that my opponent played both h6 and a6 early.
This is an error, though not a huge one. It does restrict aggressive knight jumps and bishop play in the opening, but it also lets White get a lead in development and take a dominant position in the center.
Black then compounded the opening error with a premature knight jump.
Why is this move a mistake? Well, that is for a couple of reasons. 1) Black is moving their knight twice in opening, instead of developing another piece. Just look at that difference in piece activity. 2) The aggressive Black knight can be easily countered by trading on e4, forcing Black to recapture with their forward central pawn creating a weakness to attack AND further weakening their center.
This is exactly what happened:
From here, White simply moves the attacked Knight on f3 to the d2 square, attacking the weak pawn on e4 and forcing Black to choose between developing a piece or making an awkward move to try and protect e4.
My opponent played their Queen to the middle, which then led to me being about to push the Queen around while improving my pieces and ultimately, the game played out into a comfortable win. All of this was a result of the slow moves in the early game.
After the game, my opponent tried to repeatedly challenge me to a rematch. As in, they sent me at least 10 challenges... I didn't engage, as I prefer to play different opponents. Has this ever happened to you?
