US - Italy : few thoughts on the match and games played

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Avatar of thechesscorner64

first of all,  we won against Italy in Blitz and Rapid !! Yeah !!

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/uschess/1297289  36-14 in Blitz

https://www.chess.com/club/matches/live/uschess/1297290    33-11 Rapid

a few thoughts on my games. Blitz went well.

My recent blog explored the topic of finding the decisive move and solving tactics (https://www.chess.com/blog/thechesscorner64/finding-the-decisive-move-are-you-for-the-challenge)

lets see if we can use one of the blitz games where I was able to finish off the attack with a tactical blow 

White to play and win 

Now in my game with the Black pieces against the same opponent, I was careless and I had to play Ke7 in a sicilian defense which is not a good sign. 

Can you spot the move missed by both my opponent and by me ?

White to play ( tactical resource ) 

and here's how the game ended after I survived the opening and early middlegame

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But after the 2-0 win in blitz, I relaxed in the first rapid game I ended up losing !

Here I failed to deliver the winning move in several positions. I will show only 1 and after letting my opponent escape, the game was close to a draw and I overpressed and lost.

Here's the position where finding the decisive move was need to convert a large advantage.

can you spot it ?  I will set it up as a quiz.

Black to play (missed knock-out blow !)

I was pretty mad at myself. luckily I was able to win the second game against the same opponent. Game below. Therefore 3 points out of 4  today but definitely lots to improve from a quality of play and staying focused on the task at hand....

Avatar of Joseph_Truelsons_Fan

much poggers

Avatar of mcmodern

What about 33 e6? fe then 34 Re5.

Avatar of thechesscorner64
Rookside_Castling wrote:
mcmodern wrote:

What about 33 e6? fe then 34 Re5.

yeah seems like gxf5 is the rook trap.

 

You are both correct !! exf5 fails but gxf5 is the way to go !

 

 

I guessed I missed the first and second move, so clearly this tactics wasn't on my radar at all !!