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2023 Daily Chess Championship - Round 1 - Trash Fire

2023 Daily Chess Championship - Round 1 - Trash Fire

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mrasherp
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The highest rated player in the opening round was a 1650 in Daily Chess and around 1800 rapid. 200 points clear ahead of me in both time formats. I had a feeling it was going to come down to me and him for 1st place so I had to take these games seriously. Think out each move more carefully than usual, look at variations, look at move order changes, figure out my opponent's plans.

Game 1 - White

I don't usually play d4 and c4 against nf6 on move one. I don't like the Nimzo-Indian as white and I don't know enough theory to play against solid Kings Indian players. I can't remember why I started the game this way against someone clearly better than me, but there we go.

We got off to a pretty standard start and I focused on simply developing and figuring out a plan of action later. I've played against a fair few Modern Defenses (and played a LOT of them myself) so I didn't feel totally out of my depth playing against this kind of setup.

Once we got to this position and I had expanded a little on the kingside I felt as though there was an attack brewing for me. I wasn't sure how exactly just yet but if I could keep pushing pawns, line up my rooks and avoid knasty knight forks I should be alright. Shortly after this, a breakthrough!

A huge oversight by my opponent - the queen can sneak through the oncoming attack to h5 and lay hands on the king uninterrupted! I was fully confident I could snag a win here. Unfortunately, a few moves later I evaded a check in the wrong direction and my attack lost a little steam.

I completely missed the bishop check after Ke2, or at least thought of it as unhelpful in stopping checkmate. But it bought my opponent enough time to pull the game back from dead lost to badly losing. Then to kind of losing. Then to about equal. Then to losing again. Then to totally losing. Then to totally winning. Then I resigned. A trash fire of a game that should have been a clean win for me. I had to bounce back with black to draw at the top of the table.