Brilliant 2000 game saved me from despair…

Hey all, dramatic title as ever…

Ive been on a bit of rocky form the last week or so, crashing from a highest all-time rating in the 2070s to briefly dipping below 2000 for a game yesterday. Safe to say my chess feelings were a little bit subdued.

But I’ve rebounded a bit today, solidified by this really nice win in the ponziani, featuring a thematic knight sac brilliancy to boot. Enjoy!

wow, you've played so many rapid games over the last few days. You probably need a bit of a break at this point

Yeah I kinda spiralled yesterday, it happens. I joked that I’ve just reset my rating as close to 2000 as possible to make my 2026 goal of hitting 2100 seem more impressive lol

But what do you make of the above? Good game I thought

Ye it was a classic curry special, just a very spicy game with that attack going on

Yeah! Ponziani for the win! I don't know why, but at my level I rarely encounter a called "classical" 1.e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 so I can't play it much but glad to see higher rated player win with it 💪

Ponziani is probably one of my all-time favourite openings. It’s so so strong, and opponents are often poorly prepared as it’s a rarer choice. There are tonnes of great traps, clear plans, and solid positions even against well-prepared opponents. It’s not perfect - there are some wildly complicated lines in some of the masters’ main choices - but my win rate with it to date is 53% / 7% / 40% over ~200 games so really very successful.

And it has some thematic ideas, too, which is one of the reasons I considered the knight move which helped win this game!

The game was defo in my style, and the rating spiral beforehand could also probably be called a curry special 😭