After suffering through some horrific losses, my blitz play has improved significantly over the past few weeks. In fact, I was surprised to see *Stockfish* offering less and less suggestions for my moves than in recent times. The following game was played yesterday on Chess.com against a player rated 866. The reason I chose to annotate and post this game is because I made some elementary errors that I believe could benefit lower-rated players such as myself in their own blitz games.
[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2014.10.05”]
[Round “?”]
[White “AmishHacker”]
[Black “866”]
[Result “0-1”]
[WhiteElo “806”]
[BlackElo “866”]
[Annotator “Stockfish 5 64”]
[PlyCount “52”]
[EventDate “2014.??.??”]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. Bc4 Bc5 5. O-O O-O 6. d3 d6 7. Nd5 Nd4 8. Be3
Nxf3+ 9. Qxf3 Nxd5 10. Bxd5 Bxe3 11. Qxe3 c6 {[#] Up until this point,
Black and I are relatively even. Stockfish shows me up about 0.06 with a
depth of 23, so things are not going too bad for me…} 12. Bxf7+ $4 $19 {The
first major blunder of the game and it was made out of desperation and
carelessness. I should have retreated to Bb3, but decided to sacrifice the
Bishop in hopes of breaking into the King’s defenses. For the next few moves,
Black is in complete control of the game.} Rxf7 13. d4 exd4 14. Qxd4 c5 15. Qd5
Qf8 16. Rae1 Bd7 17. Qxb7 Re8 18. Qd5 Re6 19. f4 Ref6 20. f5 Kh8 21. g4 {
[#]} h5 $2 $18 {Stockfish does not like this move and I cannot say
that I would have played it if I were in Black’s position. Better was 21…
Re7 for Black.} 22. gxh5 $2 $19 {Unfortunately, my response was no better. I
should have placed pressure on the f6 Rook by playing g5, but decided on
capturing the h5 Pawn in an attempt to wrestle control of the h-file.} Bxf5 $2
$11 {A massacre begins.} 23. exf5 Rxf5 24. Rxf5 Rxf5 {I thought for a few
moments on this move because I was not ready to sacrifice my Queen. Instead,
I wanted to find a way to maintain pressure on the King while protecting my
Queen and Rook combination. Stockfish likes Qg2 better than my choice, and I
agree. It is most likely the move that cost me the game.} 25. Qe6 $4 Rg5+ {
[#] It is over for me.} 26. Kh1 Qf3# 0-1
[/pgn]