Checkmate with killer pawn in the Center Game!

#CenterGame 

This was a smooth game where I won a strong advantage from the opening and held it to the endgame. My opponent played with the white pieces played the Center Game – e4 e5 d4 – which is an aggressive opening that is also not especially sound. Although it is not an outright bad opening, as you can see, there is no reason for Black to not accept the gambit, as they win tempo as compensation.

The strategy for White is that they need to hold onto their positional advantage in the centre, and as soon as they let go of this with push their e-pawn forward, their position collapsed with a -3 advantage to Black.

In the early middle game, I further cemented my advantage with winning one of their pieces and forcing their king to move and thus losing their right to castle. I then played conservatively with a goal to trade pieces and push towards an endgame with a one-piece advantage. And as the cherry on top, I managed to win by checkmate with a pawn!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/49081770637