Bishop and rook sacrifice.

This is a game that I played in real life against a player from Malvern College. We won overall (3.5 to 2.5) but I lost my game. We won the lower boards but on the top two boards (this was board 2) they had very good players. I actually quite enjoyed this game; it went on for about an hour and a half.

Please pick holes in my attacking stategy; I am so unused to sacrificing minor pieces.

Black could have forced a draw at move 18, moving the rook up and down the h -file to force repitition.

However by move 20 white looks winning. 21 Rea1 looks like a good start

Thanks, it hadn't even occured to me to force a draw by that point.

i never cared for 1...d5 it's like giving White an extra tempo. 9...Bxh3? 10 Ne5! Qh4 11 g3 wins Q for R. 11...Nxh8 looks a bit stronger, it'll take Black an extra tempo to capture the N(h8) before he has any threats on the h-file.

I think your mistake was 16...Qh1+?. You should have done g3 or Kxd8 or g5 something like that.

I would have gone with a queenside castle

I like bogart's idea alot, although he means h2. Your 8th move queenside castling seems to be a huge waste of tempo, cause he doesn't have any immediate threats, and since you've pretty much committed to the attack you should throw all your energy and moves into the attack as long as your king isn't in peril. 8.Bd6 woulda made your attack alot stronger and would have prevented the trouble with his knight. You could have then taken some kingside pawns if he castled kingside, and gotten your knight involved, and perhaps a pawn backed by a rook. Although if he decided not to castle at that point it might make your pieces ill-placed?

Fellah, having played 2... Nf6 you should recapture with the knight... otherwise what was the point of your second move? In the centre-counter the queen, once attacked in the centre always goes to a5 not h5. Black then plays ...c6 at some point, and when it gets too hot for the queen on a5 heads back to the safe square of c7. The center-counter is a good choice for black as it is quite forcing and not too much to learn. It seems that you have been playing this opening without any book knowledge... put this right immediately, get a book and read it cover to cover. If not, players will continue to chew you up, all white 1 e4 players know how to play against the centre-counter and will find you out very quickly. Also, why are you playing this game from memory? it is a requirement in match play that one keeps a written record of the moves (a scoresheet), if you don't keep score, you can't claim a draw through repetition, the fifty move rule, win on time and loads of other stuff. Harsh but fair, I think.

2...Nf6 is a perfectly playable variation of the Scandanvian. I know of several others who play it, including my chess coach. The point of the second move was to develope a knight. The central pawn can be taken at any time, I do not want to develope my queen straight away, just to have it chased around the board.

I know lots of book moves for it, and a good 10-12 variations of the centre counter. Furthermore, I have at least 100 games experience on the opening.

It was a friendly game between the two clubs, nothing official about it at all. Neither side notated, but we could have done if we wanted to. 

16. ... Qh1+ looks like a mistake to me. You don't want to give white any breathing room. If you can't see to a win starting with this move, you should save it for later.  Two other candidates are g3 and Ne7.

 

16. ... g3 threatens Qh1#. If 17.Kg2 Qh2+ 18.Kf3 Qh5+ wins the white queen with check, so 17. Qg2 is forced. Now black might try 17. ... Qg4 threatening Rh2. White has 18. Qf3 and 18. ... Qh3 19. Qg2 Qg4 leads to a repetition.

 

16. ... Ne7 aims to bring the knight to f5 where it can participate in the attack. The question here is whether or not white has any productive moves. It turns out that white has a hard time driving black off the h-file because white needs to keep the f2 square available for the king (this prevents Bf2 or Rf2-h2). White must also keep the queen as a defender of h2 to prevent Qh2#. So perhaps black has the time to manoever the knight.