Game 5, King's Pawn, unusual line, sprcow(1403) vs. goldenboy077(1311), Monday 1/7/2019
I wasn't very focused heading into this game. Work was busy and I didn't get home as early as I would like. I made myself some Earl Grey and bread with cinnamon and tried to settle in. I played a mediocre round of puzzle rush and fired up an "I'm feeling lucky" playlist on google music. It started with Tchaikovsky, so I decided that boded well and queued up.
Another game where I got matched down, which is always a little double-edged. On one hand, my opponent might make more mistakes. On the other hand, quality of play seems extremely variable at this rating level and it's totally possible to play someone who is having a good day and outperforms their rating level while you have a lot of rating points on the line for getting matched down.
The game started off immediately weird, with my opponent responding to 1.e4 with 1...e6, suggesting they were going into the french, but then they fianchettoed their queenside bishop, blocked their c-pawn, and we were out of theory by move 4. Generally I'm happy to see this kind of thing, since it often presents opportunity for advantage if I can find it.
It does mean I spend more time in the opening, though.
Time management is always one of my weaker aspects, and so it was a challenge to balance good moves with clock time. My opponent was playing fast and loose and got significantly ahead on the clock. They played two consecutive g pawn pushes before I had even castled and before they had developed, which seemed either like a trendy GM line or a blitz chess ploy. In either case, it enabled me to move both my knights one step closer. Check out the position after 7.Ne5 -- I would not want to play this position as black.
Then my opponent sacrificed a knight for a center pawn, which is highly dubious in this position. I'm the one that stands to benefit from the position opening up, and black has no way to capitalize on this sacrifice. Maybe they thought they'd win both center pawns, but I suspect it was just a straight blunder.
Black is already losing at this point, but they missed an additional tactic while trying to defend and I was able to trade my bishop and knight for a rook and knight. Now I'm up a full rook, and black's king is terribly unsafe.
My opponent had almost 6 minutes more left on the clock than me, but at that point there was no real danger of time pressure, even for too-slow me. I took a less threatening, but safer line that allowed me to trade queens instead of trying to find an immediate win. My goal at this point was to not throw away the game.
I saw another tactic a turn too late that would have won me yet another bishop, but a few moves later my opponent blundered a rook and then resigned.
It's hard to say why my opponent made so many mistakes today, but I've definitely been there. They have over 2k rapid games played, so they're no novice, but today's game was mostly a case of 'make decent moves, don't blunder, pick up the pieces.'
Another game where I got matched down, which is always a little double-edged. On one hand, my opponent might make more mistakes. On the other hand, quality of play seems extremely variable at this rating level and it's totally possible to play someone who is having a good day and outperforms their rating level while you have a lot of rating points on the line for getting matched down.
The game started off immediately weird, with my opponent responding to 1.e4 with 1...e6, suggesting they were going into the french, but then they fianchettoed their queenside bishop, blocked their c-pawn, and we were out of theory by move 4. Generally I'm happy to see this kind of thing, since it often presents opportunity for advantage if I can find it.
It does mean I spend more time in the opening, though.
Time management is always one of my weaker aspects, and so it was a challenge to balance good moves with clock time. My opponent was playing fast and loose and got significantly ahead on the clock. They played two consecutive g pawn pushes before I had even castled and before they had developed, which seemed either like a trendy GM line or a blitz chess ploy. In either case, it enabled me to move both my knights one step closer. Check out the position after 7.Ne5 -- I would not want to play this position as black.
Then my opponent sacrificed a knight for a center pawn, which is highly dubious in this position. I'm the one that stands to benefit from the position opening up, and black has no way to capitalize on this sacrifice. Maybe they thought they'd win both center pawns, but I suspect it was just a straight blunder.
Black is already losing at this point, but they missed an additional tactic while trying to defend and I was able to trade my bishop and knight for a rook and knight. Now I'm up a full rook, and black's king is terribly unsafe.
My opponent had almost 6 minutes more left on the clock than me, but at that point there was no real danger of time pressure, even for too-slow me. I took a less threatening, but safer line that allowed me to trade queens instead of trying to find an immediate win. My goal at this point was to not throw away the game.
I saw another tactic a turn too late that would have won me yet another bishop, but a few moves later my opponent blundered a rook and then resigned.
It's hard to say why my opponent made so many mistakes today, but I've definitely been there. They have over 2k rapid games played, so they're no novice, but today's game was mostly a case of 'make decent moves, don't blunder, pick up the pieces.'
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