From the Dark side of the Ruy Lopez

Playing the Dark Side against the Ruy Lopez...

Some imperfect play on both sides but my side turned out a little less imperfect.

I like the Ruy Lopex Exchange.  I'm surprised White went for Nxe5 early as opposed to the main line O-O.

White is 100 points higher than Black

GG!

Thx!

nice !!!

Very nice (although 19...Qg2# is a clear improvement ;)

Fun game. Just curious if white plays 6.Nf3 should black play Qxe4+ and then is forced to trade Queens after 7.Qe2. Is there a different continuation for black that works out better insteads of Qxe4+? Also what was your logic in 6...Bxg4 instead of 6...Qxe4+ in your game? Also I really enjoyed your Morphy article yesterday...Thanks.

Isn't it though! I saw mate in 2, but not mate in 1. :-D

Well, I've played this particular opening many times. Usually White will play 6.Nf3 and I'll play 6...Qxe4+ and the Queens go off the board, which suits me fine.  In this game, it was a 5/0 game, I saw 6...Qxe4+ 7.Ne3 and the Queens staying on the board, which I couldn't follow in the time available, so I decided to take the Knight and cause some pandemonium.

i dont like ruy with bxc6 back to 2011 i played it many times but after that gm salem m salem said that this is just hopeless 

That was a very exciting game. Well played.

Wow, what a beautiful rook sacrifice! Great game.

Is 5. .. Qg5 an alternative for 5. .. Qd4? I haven't looked at it thoroughly, but it does more or less the same as Qd4, but it makes sure that white can not castle king side anymore. White will retain the e-pawn, but lose the g-pawn.

I don't know.  I've never played 5...Qg5, but it looks playable.  The problem with trading queens is that castling seems to lose it's urgency. Normally, after 6.Nf3 Qxe4+ 7.Qe2 QxQ 8.KxQ, Black can play his light colored Bishop and 0-0-0 very quickly, giving Black an edge in development.  But White can simply move his King and has decent position.

The endgame is at least equal for black after Nxe5 Qd4 Nf3 Qxe4+ Qe2 Qxe2+ Kxe2 because of the bishop pair and ease of development.  Think of it as being a Berlin Wall endgame without the poor coordination in black's camp and multiple lost tempi for white (the pawn structure is slightly different because there is no white pawn on e5 and the d file is not open, but many of the imbalances are the same).

You could have won faster and more briliantly:

Thanks, Polar Bear.  They named an opening system after you, as you probably know - although how they mxed up Bird's and Bears is beyond me. .  In a 5 minute game I feel lucky to survive, let alone being uncustomarily brilliant.  I never bother giving such games more than a cursory once-over because the depth of thinking during such games is rather shallow- at least for me it is.