A fun miniature

This was only a 10-minute game, but move eight and the mate were pretty.

Nice!

The worse feeling in chess for me is making moves like your opponent's 7th. Attacking a piece to get it to move when it's threatening to go somewhere crushing. How useless do I feel when I make moves like that.

Nice game! :-)

Interesting,even if it seemed to me that you played 1min game!

ouch, nice mate

What a unique mate.  kudos!

nice game

Nice!

paul211> You are a 2000+ player, I am curious as to what your opponent's rating

My 10-minute blitz rating is 1550 and his is 1250.

paul211> I have never played 3...Qb6 and fail to see the purpose of the move.

2...Qb6?! is worse than the common 2...Nc6. Both moves eye the central square d4. A key difference is 2...Qb6?! eyes b2, but that square's not weak, and his queen's more vulnerable now and doesn't support the thematic ...d7-d5.

3.Nc3 is a developing move that also threatens Nd5 at some point, which prompted my opponent to play 3...e6. Unfortunately, ...e6 does not help him develop his dark-squared bishop (nor quite prepare ...d7-d5).

4.g3 - Developing. I wanted Black to spend a tempo doing something with his dark-squared bishop before I played d2-d4, but Rybka notices the immediate 4.d4! cxd4 5.Qxd4! Qxd4 6.Nxd4 a6 7.e4 is stronger. I had only considered 5.Nxd4.

4...Qb4? - A silly one-move threat that helps me develop.

6.Nb5!? Qa5 7.Bb2 a6? 8.Nd6+ - I was expecting him to see the tactic now and play 8...Ke7 9.Nxc8+ Rxc8, when I have a smaller advantage...

8...Bxd6?? 9.Bxg7 Nb4 - ...but this made for a prettier game. :)

9.Bxg7 Nb4 - 9...Be5 is met by 10.Nxe5.

10.Bxh8 Nxa2?? - I suppose he was desperate, and maybe hoping for 11.Qc2 Nb4 12.Rxa5 Nxc2+ 13.Kd1 when things are closer.

11.Qb1 Nc3 12.Bxc3 13.Ba5 - An immediate 13.Qxh7 also works, but this deprives my opponent's queen any hope of counterplay or even of defending his king.

14.Qxh7 Nf6 15.Qh8+ Ke7 - Other moves lose even more material.

16.Bd8# - Reti's Mate. Simple and pretty. :)

Very nice game!

Very good game shame i cant play like that

paul211, thanks for your analysis. I didn't ask your avg opponent's rating. The two lines beginning "paul211>" in my post #10 were quoting what you had said.