Alright, now we can leave the evils of blitz behind.
Spent quite a bit more time in the training program tonight. It's starting to give me more opening and positional puzzles and fewer tactical motifs, so we'll see if that helps anything.
First up tonight, I don't believe my esteemed opponent was taking the game as seriously as he could have, but we've all been there. Not much point in running this through the computer. After he dropped the queen I was just focused on not throwing anything away and taking the win.
MCO does not seem to have this one either.
[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2009.09.11"]
[White "KyleMayhugh"]
[Black "eramos"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1257"]
[BlackElo "1288"]
[ECO "D06"]
[Opening "QGD"]
[Variation "Marshall defense"]
[TimeControl "1800+10"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 Nf6 3. cxd5 Qxd5 4. Nf3 Nc6 5. Nc3 Qc4
6. e4 e5 7. Bxc4 Bg4 8. dxe5 Nh5 9. O-O Nd4 10. Qxd4 Be7
11. Nd5 Bd8 12. h3 Be6 13. Rd1 O-O 14. Ng5 c6 15. Nxe6 fxe6
16. Be2 exd5 17. exd5 Nf6 18. exf6 Bxf6 19. Qc4 Kh8 20. dxc6 bxc6
21. Qxc6 Rae8 22. Bh5 Rc8 23. Qa4 g6 24. Bg4 Ra8 25. Bh6 Rfe8
26. Re1 Reb8 27. Bf3 Bxb2 28. Bxa8 Bxa1 29. Rxa1 Rxa8 30. Qd4+
1-0
And then the training program paid off heavily tonight, as it kept giving me problems involving rook and pawn endings, and look what we ended up with!
Although the computer will tell me otherwise shortly in a minute, I felt I played very well in this game. My opponent did as well and made no obvious (to me) mistakes, so that made the win more satisfying. But I followed my move process religiously, I didn't make any mistakes and I considered his threats very carefully. I'm sorry if you are out there, PlayAnotherGame, you got caught by my playing to a much higher standard than normal.
[Event "ICC"]
[Site "Internet Chess Club"]
[Date "2009.09.11"]
[White "KyleMayhugh"]
[Black "PlayAnotherGame"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteElo "1281"]
[BlackElo "1460"]
[ECO "D20"]
[Opening "QGA"]
[Variation "3.e4"]
[TimeControl "1500+25"]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 3. e4 b5
Here's the funny thing: Everybody always says the Queen's Gambit is not a true gambit because black can't hold the pawn, but I've yet to crack how to quickly win back the pawn with this response.
MCO considers 3. e4 to be a non-standard but valid alternative for white here, so I guess that's okay, but I was thinking it was standard. I guess Nf3 is more natural.
4. Nc3 c6 5. Bf4 e6
6. Nf3 Nf6 7. g3 Bb4
g3 I really like here, because it is the right move for the right reasons imo. I thought awhile, I considered candidate moves and found one that did a lot for me. It supported the dark-squared bishop which was otherwise unprotected, it gave my light-squared bishop a good place to go, and it gave me a little more control over the somewhat central f4 square. Meanwhile, it weakend my light squares on that side, but his light bishop is nowhere near a good attacking position.
8. e5 Ne4
Saw the threat created by his pinning my pawn's defender and responded appropriately.
9. Qc2 Bxc3+
I felt this was another strong positional move
10. bxc3 Qd5
11. Bg2 f5
Now he's got a serious weak dark-square complex all over the board, his only developed minor piece is horribly placed in the center, vulnerable and pinned to his queen. At the higher levels, this game would be almost over despite his being ahead a pawn. But I'm nowhere near good enough to see this through with any certainty.
12. O-O O-O 13. Rfe1 Bb7
More pressure on that square.
14. Ng5 h6 15. Nxe4 fxe4
16. Bxe4 Qd7
The exchange that had been brewing awhile regains the pawn and leaves me the undisputed king of the center of the board.
17. Bh7+ Kh8 18. Qg6?! c5
This move was very, very speculative. I'm really not sure about it at all. It was definitely a "let's get lots of pieces near and pointed at his king and see if one of those tactics situations suddenly appears like in the training program" type of move. Probably more ? than ! in my opinion, but I played it anyway.
19. Rad1 Qd5 20. Qe4 Qxe4
Qd5 presented exactly the kind of threat I could have easily missed in the past. If my rook hadn't been well-placed on e1 to provide that crucial extra defender, I wouldn't have been able to effectively meet it. And the old me could have easily missed the threat of mate (heck, the new me could have too).
Very well played by my opponent, after this exchange he will regain positional equality, and while technically a bishop is considered better than a knight in end-game, knights give me all kinds of willies.
21. Bxe4 Bxe4 22. Rxe4 Rd8 23. Rd2 Nc6 24. Be3 cxd4 25. Bxd4 Rd5
I really wanted that pesky knight off the board here with a trade.
26. Be3 Nxe5 27. Rxd5 Nf3+
More credit to me, I'm darn near gushing about this game (the computer is going to smack me down real soon. In case anyone reading hasn't noticed, even though my computer-based annotations are side-by-side with my personal ones, I add them all after I've gone through the game personally myself).
Anyway, I saw the attempt at holding on to the extra pawn with Nf3+ to buy a tempo, but I also knew I could hold him off by chasing the knight a little and that his knight would end up in a bad spot back in the corner and nearly dominated by my bishop. Yay for me!
28. Kg2 Ne1+ 29. Kf1 exd5 30. Re5 Nc2
31. Rxd5 Nxe3+ 32. fxe3 a6
Very relived that the knight is off the board. And what do we have here? A passed pawn with rooks ending! This is exactly what the computer trainer had me working on all evening, so huzzah for it and me.
33. e4 Kg8 34. Ke2 Kf7
I think Ke2 was inaccurate here, and Rf5 would have been much better, keeping his king on the sidelines of the g and h files, away from all the action.
35. Ke3 Re8
36. Rf5+ Kg6
Thankfully I get another chance to pin that king over there. The game was probably won here, as long as I played very carefully. And for once I did.
37. Kf4 Re6 38. e5 a5 39. Ke4 Kh7 40. Rf1 Kg6
Advance the pawn, protect it, get the rook some breathing room and put it behind the passed pawn where rooks belong (so says my training program).
From here, promoting it is straight out of the book.
41. Kd5 Re8 42. Kd6 Rd8+ 43. Ke7 Rd2 44. e6 Rxh2 45. Re1 Rxa2
46. Kf8 Rf2+ 47. Kg8 Rc2
I'm not sure this was such a good idea in retrospect, Ke8 may have been better than Kg8. I'm vaguely worried about a back rank mate here now with my king having no escape squares off of the eighth row, but I also know my pawn would promote before he could ever get in position to do that, so I shouldn't be such a worry wart.
He can no longer stop the pawn from promoting and that should more or less be game.
Crafty actually disagrees here. This is the first time Crafty has strongly disagreed with any move from either player to this point, which is absolutely amazing!
Crafty says to play 45. Kf8, and the line goes Rxa2 46. e7 Re2, promote, trade the promoted pawn for the rook and win from there with the extra rook gobbling the remaining pawns.
The text (45. Re1) gives him the opportunity to draw by playing Rd2, followed by Kf8, Rd8+, Ke7, Rd2, and repeat. I probably would have actually played Ke8 instead, which would have been followed I guess by Kf6 , which I think still promotes the pawn. I'm confused, I must admit, by Crafty's analysis.
48. e7 Rxc3 49. e8=Q+ Kg5 50. Qxb5+ Kg4
51. Qxa5 Rxg3 52. Re4+ Kf3 53. Qa3+ Kxe4 54. Qxg3 g5 55. Kg7
1-0
New rating: 1281 (24 points from that game). I've been this high before, but now somehow it seems more solid, like I really earned it with careful play.
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