Game 2 of my 100 annotated games challenge - Chess Forums

TheOnoZone

Sep 11, 2021

0

#1

I am going to try and structure these analyses with some flavour text for anyone who cares. Ultimately this information is for me and my improvement, but maybe there is something useful here for someone else. What I’m hoping to get out of it is to try and identify patterns in my thought process and game.

Pre-Game Thoughts

A note to the reader that I am writing this before I play. I think it is the best way to get my feelings down accurately. I’m a bit more nervous than usual today. I’m quite aware that this game will be posted publicly. Secondly (depending on my opponent) I could reach my peak chess.com rating today which is exciting, but I am trying to remind myself that that is unimportant. Also our family dog is going mental next to me. She is useful. There might be a bear. Probably a squirrel.

Immediate Post Game Thoughts

My heart is pounding. What an emotional rollercoaster. I completely blundered a piece in the purest sense. Here you go - have a knight I said to my opponent. This has been happening to me more often than it used to. Apparently I have developed a blindness to long range pieces still on the first rank. But I took a few breaths and pushed on and thankfully my opponent returned the favour and blundered right back.

As I write this I’m calming down. I shouldn’t care, but I notice my opponent was my highest rated victory ever and I am now at my peak rating. That said I am not giving myself too much credit for this win, it doesn’t feel that good. My opponent blundered checkmate and I missed a lot of stuff. Time to dive in and look at my moves and what I was thinking.

The Game

Post Analysis Thoughts (No Engine)

In the past I would have not sought to be so aggressive after blundering a piece. I am very happy that I am getting the hang of and habit of looking for forcing moves that make my opponent react. It paid off today. I didn’t try and calculate as I need to make dinner! But I feel there was probably a faster mate or a better continuation when I had my opponent on the ropes. Food and bed now, but am excited to see how badly I played with the engine tomorrow morning before posting this.

Engine Check

On move 4 the engine likes Bb4+ and the line shows me entering the classical Dutch here.

I missed several opportunities to play Qe3+ during my attack. I had a lot of time on the clock here and the position was critical. I should have slowed down and calculated as best I could.

Lessons

Positives:

Didn’t give up, played aggressively and took initiative.

Things to work on:

I need to look at when the stonewall is bad and understand why, if I am going to play the Dutch with confidence. Also need to understand the alternatives when my opponent’s bishops are ‘ideally’ placed whatever that means (I’ll find out)!
Need to check for long range pieces and work on my blunder checking generally.
Need to slow down and calculate when I feel I have a win.