♟️ Chessnut Go + Chessiverse | Brisbane Trip | Four Knights Italian!
#travel #chessnutgo #chessiverse #fourknights
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Last week, I attended GP25, the annual conference of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, and this year, it was held in Brisbane, Australia. The conference started with a keynote from the Australian Health Minister, the Hon. Mark Butler MP, followed by a respectful, if somewhat tense fireside chat between RACGP President Dr Michael Wright, and the Minister!
I usually take an opportunity at professional conferences to try to tee up an interview for my Blitz Chess Chats series, and over the weekend, spoke with Dr Pallavi Prathivadi – keep an eye out for the interview! 🤩
I often also play a few games while away on travel, and for this, the ultraportable Chessnut Go electronic chess board is just brilliant! After dinner at the hotel restaurant (Zuma Bar & Grill) one evening, I used the Chessnut Go to play the next undefeated bot on Chessiverse, connected through Chessconnect!
Before I talk about the game, I have some very exciting news: my AI-bot on Chessiverse has been unleashed, and it’s been released as a free-to-play bot!
As you can see, the bot will play some of my favourite openings, the Vienna Gambit, the Smith-Morra, and the Englund Gambit against 1. d4! Embarrassingly, I’ve lost to my bot more times than I have won so far in my limited play testing! 🤣 I’m planning on making some fun content playing against my bot in the coming weeks!
But anyway, in this game after dinner, my virtual Greek opponent Theo, had the white pieces and led with the Vienna Game! Ooh… nice! I responded symmetrically with the Max Lange Defense (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6), and Theo developed the very normal bishop (3. Bc4). The mistake for Black would be to play the “Copycat Variation” with (3… Bc5) as White potentially gets one of the most devastating attacks out of the Vienna, the Meitner-Mieses Gambit. I don’t see this very often nowadays as I usually play the Vienna Gambit in the Max Lange (3. f4) rather than (3. Bc4) but check out my playlist on my channel!
In the game, I responded with the two knights (3… Nf6), which is a very solid, though perhaps not especially adventurous response. The logic? Black is moving White towards a Berlin-Vienna Hybrid, which is generally good for Black, or White’s most rigorous response is to abandon the Vienna and instead, transpose into the Four Knights Italian, which is what my bot-friend Theo opted to do (4. Nf3).
Those of you who follow my channel will know the book moves here! It’s technically equal, but beginners will usually make a mistake against the aggressive (4… Nxe4 5. Nxe4 d5!), ending in a fork of White’s knight and bishop in the centre of the board!
I was pleased to see the bot play the sensible-looking, and very human move at beginner levels (6. Bb5??), which is a blunder! It looks like White gains a good attack after (6… dxe4 7. Nxe5), but the move to know against White’s pressure is the unexpected (7… Qg5!). Black now exerts pressure on White’s knight and bishop on the fifth rank, and their undefended g7-pawn!
This position is pretty much completely winning for Black! I don’t play the rest of the game accurately and blundered against White’s attack. However, partly from luck, and the bot collapsing under pressure on their queen (whew…! Though I must admit, perhaps this wasn’t the most realistic blunder by the bot from a human perspective), I recaptured the advantage, and slowly ground Theo into resigning! Good game, GG!
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