Undefended pawns and the power of the pin.

In this game I left a pawn seemingly en prise for my opponent's queen.  It's a wonderful example of greed gone bad.  I also like my knight sac, which showed that their pawn wasn't really defended.  Hopefully some who are lower rating than myself might see this game will see that pawns that seem undefended can be poisonous, while those that seem defended may not be.  My opponent had huge troubles with pins in this game.  Basically, it's a great example of pins, early queen agression gone bad, and why castling can be great.  The lack of a decent pawn structure, plus black's blunder on turn 8, made this a slaughter.

I hope it was instructive to someone.

Fairly sure 6...d6 wins back the pawn.

To Scottrf, it doesn't, actually.

6...d6? - 7. Nxc6!, Qxe4+ - 8. Qe2: and Black cannot capture the Nc6 because his queen is pinned to his king.

8... Qxe2 9. Kxe2 Bb7 10. d5 Bxc6 11. dxc6 Ne7 and how are you defending it?

20.Qg7+ Kh5 21.Qg5# ;)

5. ... Qg5 instead of 5. ... Qe7 would surely make me uncomfortable.

5. Qg5 also wins it back, at the cost of a loss of development. 4... bxc6 is just a bad move IMO.

Why? 6. Nf3 Qxg2 7. Rg1 Qh3 8. Nc3 and you're ahead in development, have your rook on an open file, black has doubled pawns and his queen is sidelined for now.

Also 5. ... Qe7 6. d4 f6 wins back the pawn (7. Qh5+? g6 8. Nxg6 Qxe4+ 0-1).

But I still think 5. ... Qg5 is better. Not that it really matters, as 4. ... dxc6 is obviously superior. I don't like 5. Nxe5 for white... 5. d4 is probably better.

Hmm, I see how white is better in that variation. At first glance I was under the impression that white had to play 7. Rf1, I'm not exactly sure why.

I actually thought 5. Nxe5 was standard in the ruy lopez exchange variation. After looking at it again, I think it's usually held of for a couple of turns, but that's because black typically recaptures the bishop with their d-pawn which allows their queen to create a fork, winning back the pawn.  In this game, black recaptured with another pawn, probably making it more valid.