🤩 My Most EXCITING CHESS game of 2025!
#fun #romanticstyle
This morning, I played my most enjoyable game of chess of 2025! 🤩👍
Indeed, this inspired this video and article! To keep it brief, I had the black pieces, and my opponent played an aggressive, sacrificial, Romantic game. And in doing so, I had to respond against their play with my own bold tactics. For a good part of the game, I wasn’t sure who was ahead, but then by the middle of the middlegame, I knew that I had captured the lead with a wonderfully synchronised dance with my knight pair! This was a game that was magnificently fun to play! Let’s go!
My opponent led with the very vanilla Italian Game (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4), and against my Two Knights Defense (3… Nf6), they played the offbeat rapid short castle (4. O-O), which they followed up with a very bold (5. d4)! Interesting!
I captured (5… exd4) and after (6. e5), the position had transposed into a line from a much more aggressive opening – the Scotch Gambit: Dubois Réti Defense, Advance Variation! This was just a taste of things to come. I don’t know if this is my opponent’s regular style, but they played in a fantastic Romantic approach throughout the match. I knew that I was against someone who was doubling down on the attack when they made an unsound bishop sacrifice (9. Bxf7+!?) a few turns later. Their tactic was plain to see; after (9… Kxf7), I’d lost the right to castle, and they’d won initiative and tempo with (10. Ng5+).
White had played very quickly and had GAINED time in our 5 | 5 game of blitz. In this position, I mindfully slowed down and spent over a minute on the next move. Theoretically, I knew that I was probably ahead, but theory means nothing if I can’t prove it! I was worried about the impending/potential Qh5+ as the queen and knight together can be deadly. On analysis, Stockfish was largely unworried and evaluated that all king moves were “fine”. Taken in isolation, our computer overlords can be a bit deflating with their stone-cold calculations. However, I was chuffed to have found the best move. In the position, I could choose to step back onto the back rank defensively and then navigate White’s onslaught. Instead, after a minute of contemplation, I decided that I needed to fight an attack with a bold forward movement of my own; the king is also an attacking piece especially as I’d already lost the right to castle! So, I stepped forward (9… Kg6), defending the h5 square from the infiltration of White’s queen, and putting the king on a square where White’s h5-knight would not be able to give an easy check.
White continued to try to find attacks, and in the game, I thought that they’d might have cracked it with the clever (17. Rg3). They were threatening a discovered check, and I couldn’t easily attack their rook… For a second time, I was proud to have found a clever move that set up a future counterattack, (17… Ng4) blocking the threatened discovered check!
A couple of turns later, Black attempted to dislodge that knight with the sensible looking (19. f3?), except that Stockfish evaluates this as an inaccuracy based on a single excellent response available to Black. With only 35 seconds left on the clock (my opponent still had over three-and-a-half minutes), I managed to find it, the glorious (19… Nd4!). This was the start of six consecutive knight moves, a dance between my horses! In a windmill fashion, I cleanly won White’s rook with checks (20… Ne2+! 21. Kh1 Nxg3+ 22. Kg1 Ne2+), and then a royal fork also allowed for a capture of White’s queen (23. Kf1 Ne3+ 24. Kf2 Nxd5)!
White played on for a few more turns, haemorrhaging even more material. After losing their second rook from a skewer (28… Qg1+ 29. Kxd2 Qxa1), White suffered emotional damage, and opted to resign on turn 30, down 24 points of material! Good game, GG!
Playing Romantic style games is often excellent fun for both players regardless of who is the eventual victor! Consider giving it a go before the end of the year!
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