FUN BOOZY CHESS! 🤪🍸♟️
#fun #casual #barchess #englundgambit #vienna #brilliant
One of the principles that I place on myself in the endeavour of chess is that I want to have fun. And sometimes, that means deliberately playing bold, risky, unsound moves just to see what happens! Because simply in casual chess, if you're not enjoying the game, what exactly is the point, win or lose? Not every game needs to be this way, of course, but letting your hair down and playing chaotic chess occasionally is a good way to shake off the mind's cobwebs!
I recently met up with a mate from university at Huelo, one of the best small bars in Sydney, whose owner thrashed me a week ago in a very fun over-the-board game! My mate and I had graduated over two decades ago and haven't seen each other for some time, and we were both keen for some fun chess, some boozy chess, over a few glasses of wine! I've given them the sobriquet of "dr magneto" here; perhaps obscure, but I'm sure they'll get the joke! 😏
Game 1: Queen's Pawn Opening: Englund Gambit Declined 2. d5
First game; I give my mate the white pieces and as he's a man of culture, he plays the Queen's Pawn Opening which of course, demands the Englund Gambit as a response, to which he declines with d5... (1. d4 e5 2. d5?!). Interesting! One of the de facto rules of the matches was that we would try to play interesting chess!
In this position, I know from previous games that Nf6 is the best move, but instead, I played c6. My logic is that I thought my mate would probably "feel" the tension, capture dxc6, and I would win development by recapturing by developing my queen's knight (Nxc6). And that's what happened after (3. c4) - a very interesting and committal move to hold onto the d-pawn, but after (3... Nf6), my mate opted to trade anyway.
Next move (5. Bg5), ostensibly pinning my knight to the queen; so hmm... (5... Bc5), to set up a potential bishop sacrifice capture of the f2-pawn with check (a brilliant move!) as a tactic to unpin the knight and capture White's bishop! And it worked - (6. Nc3? Bxf2+!! 7. Kxf2 Ng4+ 8. Ke1 Qxg5). Here, I felt a bit smug, finished my first glass of wine, and then started playing in an unreasonably aggressive manner... 🤪
White brought their queen's knight to the d5 square, a powerful attack position. The risk is Nc7 which comes with an absolute fork of my king and a8-rook. However, rather than sensibly castling the king out of danger, I took the view that it'll be no problem to trade the rook for their knight as it will end up stuck in the corner. Instead, I went for an unbalanced attack (9... Ne3) and was immediately punished by White's (10. Nf3) counterattacking my queen! Doubling-down, I decided to trade off my knight (10... Nxg2+ 11. Bxg2 Qxg2?!) and thought, "it'll be fine". Actually, I was rapidly and decidedly "not fine" despite being up on material as my queen was on the wrong side of the board by herself, and White had a powerful counterattack with the knight pair and their rook on the g-file, which I had opened up for them!
Move 16, I thought I had trapped White's knight but I blundered by moving the wrong pawn. Wine! White now forked my king and h8-rook with their second knight and they were well on the way of getting both knights in the opponent's corners... interesting! 🤣
At this point, I knew that I was completely losing, but I was fine with it. I thought that my only chance now was to see whether I could wrangle a draw by forced repetition through giving repeated checks. White's king was very exposed and like me, they had focussed entirely on attack rather than defence! My opportunity came on move 22 when White played (22. Rg8+). My mate commented in the game that this was an interesting move that he thought might be bad... He was angling to SACRIFICE THE ROOK (😄) to draw my king onto g8, so that he could infiltrate with his queen on d5 with check.
I admire the gumption and the romance of the move! I could see what he was doing: (22... Kxg8 23. Qd5+ Kxh8 24. Qf7), and dr magneto is now one move away from checkmate with Qf8. Except, the queen never gets to move again, and the evaluation has gone from [+M10 → 0.00]!
White's queen had infiltrated, which meant that it was no longer capable of providing defence of her king. White's remaining knight was on a8 - incapable of influencing the game. White's queenside rook had yet to move and will not have an opportunity to do so in the game. I now chase White's king with my queen, and then the combination of my queen and knight. Move 27, I miss a sequence where I could force-win White's queen with a royal fork with my knight, but it was hard to see with a couple of glasses of wine on board! We play on for a few more moves, and I discussed with White that we were eventually going to arrive at a threefold repetition. If I didn't give a check, White would end the game with checkmate... so I had to give checks each turn, and I could do so indefinitely. We make a gentleman's agreement to a draw, ordered another glass of wine each, and switched colours for game 2!
Game 2: Vienna Game 2... d6
Second game; I played the Vienna Game (of course!) and dr magneto with the black pieces responded with (2... d6), what I dub the "Philidor-ish" Defense. I strike out with (3. d4) and Black counterattacked with (3... f5); fascinating! At some point in the past, I had analysed this and I knew it was a mistake, but it's fantastic chaotic chess! 😜
I decided to be a bit principled here so (4. dxe5) and Black can't immediately recapture with (4... dxe5) as it would open the d-file and I would whack their queen forcing Black to give up castling rights. Black sensibly develops their queen's knight first (4... Nc6) and here, I decided to call Black's f5 bluff and captured their pawn (5. exf5?!). I knew that this probably wasn't accurate (it wasn't!) but after (5... Bxf5), I now had a move that sometimes occurs in the von Hennig Gambit line, which is the immediate (6. g4), attacking Black's bishop with the pawn supported by the queen along the light square diagonal. I noted that Black's king was potentially rather exposed along their light squares after having moved, and lost, their f-pawn. Stockfish called this move a mistake, but "it was fine"!
A couple more moves, and some trades, and we enter the middlegame on move 10 with Black castling long. Like the first game, I had delayed castling, and had it in my mind that I might not castle at all to focus on attacking! I form a battery with my queen and light square bishop along the long diagonal - this puts long term pressure on White's defensive pawns after castling.
With Black's king now on the c-file, I also saw a devious tactic... The c-file was closed and I rather thought that Black would capture my c-pawn for me with their bishop if I left it hanging - which they did (12... Bxc2). Now, I potentially won tempo with (13. Rc1), attacking Black's bishop, but more importantly, it meant that after the bishop went away, Black's c6-pawn would be potentially pinned to their king. As it happened, Black attempted to counter my attack on their bishop, with an attack of my queen with (13... e4??). This was a blunder - whenever pawns move forwards, they weaken the defences behind them, and in this case, it was the diagonals to their king. Firstly (14. Qf5+ Kc7), and then (15. Rxc2), cleanly capturing Black's offside bishop.
Unfortunately for dr magneto, the end was nigh as their king was just too exposed and too many of Black’s pieces had yet to develop (the queen's knight, bishop and rook). I found a beautiful sequence using the c-pawn pin I saw before starting with (16. Bf4+) and Black blocked the check (16... Rd6) rather than having their king exposed further by running away in front of their pawns (16... Kb6). However, after trades (17. Bxd6+ Qxd6) I had a lovely move striking emotional damage, (18. Nb5+!). This was a seemingly impossible royal fork as the b5 square was ostensibly defended by Black's c6-pawn, except that the knight attack also reveals a discovered pin by my c2-rook - the tactic I saw several moves ago! I was very pleased with that move. 😁
A few moves later, I walked my king to a defensive bunker of pawns on the kingside. Black recognised that the game was lost as they were down 11 points of material, and dr magneto graciously resigned. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is to never forget to have fun with chess. Play some casual unrated games - whether OTB or online - and don't worry about gaining or losing points! Play some chaotic aggressive moves, just to see what would happen!
Game 1: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/54QM4W4iza
Game 2: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/26UsFFUryC
