Blunders from the excitement of a winning attack…

#BishopsOpening #BerlinDefense 

Today, I won a game that I should have lost! I basically blundered a move in the middle game, and my opponent launched a punishing and very clever attack on my king with their queen, with a mate in 1 threat. I had accepted that my poor move meant that I would straight up lose a piece without compensation. And then, my opponent made a Botez Gambit?

I remember doing this earlier in my chess journey. I see a strong and potentially winning checkmate line, and my opponent seemingly allows it to happen! So I launch it excitedly, and in my mind, I’m completely winning. My opponent then plays a move that perhaps I didn’t anticipate, but as I’ve convinced myself that my plan was winning, I miss what is an obvious counterattack, something easily sidestepped, and blunder into a losing position.

My hunch is that my opponent was probably so invested in the projection that they would have a checkmate with Qa8, they never considered what they should do when it didn’t happen when I created an escape square for the king. I can imagine the thought – ah ha! – let’s bring in another attacker! And in that “I’m winning” mindset, was blinded to the fact that the king move revealed a discovered attack on the queen by my rooks, as they’re all on the back rank. Or the fact that my knight was straight up hanging after their clever manoeuvre, and ripe for the capture.

In an earlier video, I spoke about the risk of “mate in 1 tunnel vision” and here it struck again. Unfortunately for my opponent, it instantly transformed their winning position, +6, to a losing one, -7.

I hope you found this game interesting, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/41042902635