I submitted the final assignments to complete my Masters of Divinity (M.Div.) earlier this week, so years of university school work has come down to the arduous task of waiting on degree conferral. Finishing up these remaining assignments left me little time to play chess, but that has *finally* changed and I am beginning to reclaim my free time through online play, reading, and study. Imagine my surprise (and delight) when I returned to playing online chess and won the first two games. The third game did not go so well and my pattern of wins-losses has traveled along an unusual 2:1 ratio of wins to losses.
I played a game the other night against a challenging opponent whom I was convinced had me in a death grip once or twice during the game, but I managed to pull some tactical maneuvers and secure the win. Here it is with my commentary:
[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2016.02.25”]
[Round “?”]
[White “1071”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “0-1”]
[ECO “A03”]
[WhiteElo “1071”]
[BlackElo “1124”]
[Annotator “Wesley Surber”]
[PlyCount “68”]
[EventDate “2016.??.??”]
[TimeControl “15”]
1. f4 d5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. e3 e6 {And we quickly move out of the book and into
uncharted territory.} 4. Be2 {This cramped my position, but I needed the space
on the back rank to castle.} Nc6 5. O-O {First objective accomplished.} Bd6 6.
d3 O-O {Both kings are safety tucked away in their respective castles; now the
carnage can begin!} 7. h3 e5 8. fxe5 Bxe5 9. Nxe5 Nxe5 10. b3 (10. d4 {Would
have stopped my development and given black numerous opportunities to attack.})
10… d4 11. e4 b6 12. Bf4 Qd6 13. Qd2 a5 14. c3 a4 15. cxd4 $2 {My heart
stopped for a minute because I quickly realized that I had just given away a
pawn with no real strategy on what to do when black captured it.} Qxd4+ $1 16.
Kh1 {Forced.} Qxa1 $1 {The pressure was mounting. Black’s deadly fork cost me
a pawn and a rook with threats to cause further damage.} 17. d4 {I could not
allow the knights to remain in their position. I needed to carve an opening in
the center.} Nxe4 18. Qe3 $1 {Diagram [#] One of those knights will soon be
history.} Bf5 19. Bxe5 Qxa2 {Greedy pawn gobbling by black; never a good
strategy.} 20. Bc4 axb3 21. Bxb3 Qa6 {Obviously, black intends to capture the
2nd rook, but I had no intention of allowing him the chance to enact his plan.}
22. Rxf5 g6 23. Rf4 Ng5 24. Bd5 {The bishop engages to push the a8 rook into
the fight. Breaking the line with an f8 and a8 rook would be much more
difficult. This equalized things considerably.} Rae8 25. Rg4 {Attacking the
knight in the hopes that black would try to engage in his original plan of
a6-f1+.} Qf1+ {And he did…} 26. Kh2 Qxb1 27. Qxg5 c5 28. Qf6 Rxe5 $1 {
The only way to avoid mate in 1 by Qg7# or Qh8#.} 29. dxe5 h5 {Black tries to
build an escape route.} 30. Rf4 Qd3 {Black is too late to stop the bishop from
crashing through his remaining castle wall.} 31. Bxf7+ Rxf7 32. Qxf7+ Kh8 33.
Qxg6 Qxg6 34. Rf6 Qg5 {Black resigned. What is interesting here is that
black actually had the winning position after we traded Queens, but chose to
abandon the battle.} 0-1
[/pgn]
The next game caught me falling to an old cognitive trap that has devastated my play before: *complacency.*
[pgn]
[Event “Live Chess”]
[Site “Chess.com”]
[Date “2016.02.25”]
[Round “?”]
[White “1175”]
[Black “AmishHacker”]
[Result “1-0”]
[WhiteElo “1175”]
[BlackElo “1117”]
[Annotator “Surber, Wesley A. “]
[PlyCount “29”]
[EventDate “2016.??.??”]
[TimeControl “15”]
1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 $2 {I have played this move quite a few times over the
past few years and it rarely works out for me. Each time I play it I stop to
ask myself: why do I keep doing that? To this day, I have no idea.} 3. Nc3 Nf6
4. e4 e6 {There are no sane moves available to defend the c4 pawn, so it is
lost.} 5. Bxc4 Bb4 6. Bd2 Qxd4 $5 {Too aggressive for my analysis style. The
plan was to threaten mate on f2 with the Queen-knight combo, but the plan
never manifested.} 7. Qf3 Qxc4 {Gobbling up the free bishop and reducing
pressure on the e6 pawn.} 8. Rc1 O-O 9. Nb1 Qxa2 $4 10. Bxb4 $1 {Definitely
not a fair trade on my end.} Qxb2 11. Bd2 Rd8 12. Ne2 {White has built a
terrifying fortress around his king. There is very little that I could do from
this point on.} Rd3 $4 {Stupid, cocky, and simply not paying attention. That
is the reason for this blunder, which immediately cost me the game.} 13. Qxd3
Qe5 $4 {I missed the upcoming mate in 2!} 14. Qd8+ $3 Ne8 $8 15. Qxe8# {Ouch.}
1-0
[/pgn]
I plan to work on some articles about the different cognitive traps that affect chess players, but I need to conquer my procrastination trap first.
-w.s.