Campfire Stories #5

I am very excited that the Sinquefield Cup is in full swing at this very moment! It is one of my favorite tournaments throughout the year! Unfortunately, my own chess games have taken a dramatic turn for the worse in recent weeks. This accounts for my lack of blogging activity as I have largely returned to the books and to working on tactics puzzles to help me solve some of the problems I have been having. As you will see in the game below, I have struggled to maintain adherence to basic chess principles when faced with tough decisions over the board. This is something that takes time and practice. To help myself understand these difficulties a little better, I annotated the following game move-by-move to analyze what went wrong and what could have gone right.

[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2015.08.14”]
[Round “?”]
[White “1102”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “1-0”]
[ECO “D30”]
[WhiteElo “1102”]
[BlackElo “1002”]
[Annotator “Surber,Wesley”]
[PlyCount “39”]
[EventDate “2015.??.??”]
[TimeControl “15”]

1. d4 {The Queen’s pawn opening is a very popular opening chess move, but I
tend to stick with the King’s pawn e4 opening. When faced with 1.d4, I prefer
to block the advancement with 1…d5.} d5 {Purely designed to establish a
blockade and prevent the d4 pawn from going any further without material loss.}
2. e3 {This move activates the f1 Bishop while adding defensive reinforcement
to the pawn on d4.} e6 {Mirroring White’s move and reinforcing my position in
the center. Not too concerned with the formation at this point. These moves
are pretty basic.} 3. c4 {White makes the first attacking move here. The d5
pawn is in a direct line of fire, but capturing it brings no material gain
after cxd5 Qxd5.} Nc6 {White is probably going to take the d5 pawn and attack
the Knight, but not advancing the Knight would likely cost me tempo, so I
decided to develop a piece before considering an attack on the c4 pawn.} 4.
cxd5 {White captures the d5 pawn as expected.} Qxd5 {The most reasonable
recapture idea, otherwise the King’s file is open and vulnerable.} 5. Nc3 {The
Knight on c3 launches a direct assault on my Queen and forces an immediate
retreat. I was worried about losing tempo at this point, but also liked the
idea of resetting my Queen and advancing in a different route.} Qd8 {
Retreating for a reset.} 6. Nf3 {White continues his piece development and has
a solid defence for the d4 pawn.} Nf6 {Putting more pressure on the center of
the board and trying to discourage movement to d5.} 7. Bb5 {The Bishop pins
the Knight to my King. This is a fairly typical maneuever which is often
answered with a6 to attack the Bishop. In this instance, I was simply not
paying attention and continued to mirror my opponent’s play.} Bb4 $4 {A
terrible move. Attacking the Knight is fruitless with the b2 pawn guarding it
closely.} 8. Bxc6+ {White exchanges the Knight for a Bishop.} bxc6 {Forced.} 9.
Bd2 $1 {The results of my horrible Bishop begin to manifest. Not only is the
King protected by White’s Bishop, but my Bishop is now threatened with no way
to easily obtain compensation if it were to be captured.} O-O {Moving my King
to safety given the perilous position of the Bishop.} 10. O-O {White follows
suit and moves his King to safety.} Nd5 {I decided to challenge the c3 Knight
and to simultaneously add a defence to the b4 Bishop.} 11. Nxd5 {White answers
the challenge by trading Knights.} Qxd5 $4 {Another terrible and careless move.
Yes, I earned back the material in this instance, but the b4 Bishop is
completely unprotected and done for.} 12. Bxb4 {White gobbles up the free
Bishop.} Ba6 {Realizing that my position is quickly collapsing, I placed my
Bishop on the edge of the board to engage the Rook on f1.} 13. Re1 {At this
point, the game is lost. I am down significant material and none of my moves
are fruitful enough to gain any equalization against White’s remaining pieces.}
f5 {Realizing that things will be over soon, I decided to experiment with pawn
advances and pushed my f7 pawn ahead to engage the kingside pawns.} 14. Bxf8 $3
{I had been focusing so much on the kingside pawns and advancing to obtain
some form of equalization that I missed this attack completely. White gains a
Rook for a Bishop and solidifies his victory. The rest is only about how far I
was willing to go before resigning.} Rxf8 {The only reasonable move.} 15. Qa4 {
White begins the final phase of his assault.} Bb5 $4 {Another foolish move!} (
15… Qb5 16. Qxb5 Bxb5 {would have been much better!}) 16. Qxa7 {With the
Queen in the midst of my own territory, the end is inevitable.} Qd6 {Defending
the c7 and c6 pawns simultaneously.} 17. a4 {White engages the Bishop and
pushes away another one of my defensive assets.} Bd3 {Merely moving the Bishop
to safety.} 18. Rac1 {White prepares to invade my territory further and to
reinforce his position with a Rook battery.} Qb4 $4 {This does NOTHING to help
my position. It attacks the Rook on e1, which is defended by the Rook on c1
and Knight on f3. No chance to convert anything here.} 19. Rxc6 {White has all
he needs to build the final assault battery.} Qxb2 {Gobbling up one last piece
of material in an attempt to infiltrate White’s territory.} 20. Rxc7 {And that
is it! White has built a powerful battery and is prepared to checkmate without
any chance of me being able to mount a defense. 1102 won by resignation} 1-0
[/pgn]

As you can see, there were many opportunities during the game for me to successfully convert sacrifices into gains but I was just not able to think that fast on my feet. Much of it has to do with mental exhaustion and distraction I have felt lately due to some work stress. Now that much of that is subsiding and I have spent some time in the books, I am hoping that things will start to return to the positive for me in my chess.