Italian Game Two Knights | ALMOST AMAZING CHECKMATE!
#italian #twoknights #smotheredmate
In this game, I had the Black pieces and played against the Italian Game. It was very exciting at the end as I was down to under a minute on my clock, where my opponent had 13+ minutes! However, in the analysis, I discovered that I had missed an extremely beautiful [-M3] in the opening. I had actually considered it but didn't see it in game. So, "almost amazing"... 😅
The game started with the Italian Game, Two Knights Defense (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6). White immediately castled on move 4 - an interesting approach that I had seen only very occasionally about a dozen times. Although White looks like they are hanging or trying to gambit their e-pawn, White wins back the pawn if they play down the line of theory (4. O-O Nxe4 5. Bd5 Nf6 6. Bxc6 dxc6 Nxe5).
In this game, however, White played (5. Re1). The last time this was played against me, I reviewed the line and although I couldn't remember the moves, I KNEW that this was an inaccuracy or mistake for White. The interesting thing here is that simply knowing that I had a winning move allowed me to spend more time calculating to find it. And I found it, (5. d5) - defending the knight on e4, and counterattacking White's bishop on c4, which also disconnects its vision on my f-pawn!
This tempo winning move now allowed me to exploit the fact that White had committed to kingside castling so early, and that they had moved their rook from the defence of the f-pawn! I develop my bishop (6... Bc5), now a double attack on Black's f-pawn on f2. We have a few trades in the centre, and White attempts to double-attack my pinned knight on c6. However, this is an instance where "placing pressure on the pinned piece" was a potential mistake!
I saw this in the game and decided to play the very aggressive and tricky move (8... Qf6), now with three attackers on White's f-pawn. The interesting thing is that I didn't recognise just how strong this move was! After White commits with (9. Nxc6) capturing my pinned piece, I actually had checkmate-in-three. I had considered capturing with the queen (9... Qxf2+) but didn't see the continuation afterwards with (10. Kh1 Qg1+ 11. Rxg1 Nf2#) that would result in smothered checkmate! In the analysis, when I saw the computer evaluation of [-M3], I found it almost immediately. Argh!
Nonetheless, the attack was still very strong, giving me a winning evaluation at the beginning of the middlegame of almost [-5]. The rest of the middlegame involved a fair amount of shuffling. Playing overly carefully, I almost completely ran down my clock. My goal was to try to simplify the position with forced trades, but it wasn't so easy.
However, with a minute left on the clock, I saw an audacious tactical approach! I traded my rook for White's knight, simplifying into an endgame, which also which forced White's queen to a slightly awkward position, while I had a potential win with back rank checkmate. White was forced to bring their queen all the way back to their back rank to passively defend. Although I had less than 30 seconds left, the approach was now simple - push my passed e-pawn towards promotion. The 15 second increment with each move meant that I was no longer at any risk of flagging. White couldn't withstand the pressure and ultimately had to trade their queen for my pawn. Checkmate came a few moves later. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is that playing with a specific tactical plan can often be quite winning, even if you don't find the best move!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/90724209259
