In the first long of this year (2 hours for 40 moves, 1 hour to finish the game) I had the white pieces and my 1963 rated opponent played the Caro-Kann. I mixed up the opening moves a bit but reached a very interesting position where I had enough pressure to make life difficult for Black. There was even the chance to win a pawn with a very simple tactic:
Alas, I missed my chance and after 3.5 hours of playing I went for an unsound knight sacrifice and overlooked a backrank mate. Game over. You can replay the whole game here.
My opponent takes chess serious and we had a long post-mortem analysis session. This was actually the first time that it happened that deeply, usually my young opponents are too shy and the older ones only play for fun.
The next game is on Friday and I will play against a young woman rated 1435. Her whole family plays chess so I definitely need to watch out. I remember that her sister uses 2. c3 to counter the Sicilian and I will have to spend some time to prepare accordingly.
Your aquarium replay looks great! Good job!! *Is jealous but doesn’t show it*
Nxg6 one could feel on ones elbows that it was opportunistic.
Did you check the possible continuations or did you just play it on feeling?
Glad your opponent and you had a long post mortem session, hope you learned plenty.
Good luck on friday. Do not underestimate a 1435 rating!
Hi Johan,
I checked the possible continuations BUT didn’t look hard enough at the plans of my opponent. The attack against f2 I thought I could counter but I missed the backrank mate idea and I overestimated my chances. As my opponent correctly mentioned, the opening of the f-file helped him as well and I neither get a local superiority nor some perpetuals. Maybe h3 first but then the chance is over of course.
It was a good lesson. We looked a bit at the endgame where I have 2 pawns for the knight. It’s quite difficult to play for White especially because Black gets a passed a-pawn.
Are you drinking a beer?
It looks like a beer, indeed, but it’s apple juice mixed with plain water (2 Euros for 0.5l). Next time I will ask for Mango juice mixed with water.