Daily Chess Diary

I guess I was tired of people making dubious sacrifices that forced me to defend until I ran out of time or lost concentration, and so I was the one to make the dubious sacrifice today. I knew it was suspicious even when I was playing it, but I really wasn't looking forward to playing an obnoxious position where I had to spend a bunch of time trying to kick around my opponent's queenside pawn storm. I decided to just go for it and hope that I might be able to give my opponent enough opportunities to make mistakes. All in all, it was kind of a mess. I got the highly-tactical position I expected, but then we missed a lot of tactics. Ultimately my opponent did blunder a mate-in-one but they had about a hundred ways to prevent it earlier. This wasn't really an earned victory, but it did give me the magic internet points.

Today's warmup puzzle rush was especially sluggish, so I did a second one and felt much sharper. Got yet another pairing with black and my opponent was slow to start so I checked out their profile. Half a dozen comments on his profile commented about how he abandons games he's losing, so I was debating aborting and trying again, but then he moved and I decided to just go ahead and play. He played a response to French Defense I've never seen before, with 2.c4, clamping down on d5. I avoided playing d5, and so it transposed into a sort of english-y position. I managed to get an advantage but at the expense of time (typical). He advanced a couple pieces on the queenside that seemed more threatening than they actually were and I should have just continued developing and ignored them. Instead, I kicked them out but allowed them to reposition to attack on the kingside. I allowed my opponent double my pawns at the cost of a bishop, because it felt like I would still have prett...

Yet another game as black, yet another French Defense. Today was the Tarrasch, which always makes me think of the Tarrasque. Since it's strong and scary, like the Tarrasque, I guess it makes sense. White puts the knight on d2 where black can't pin it, though I don't play the Winawer anyway so in some ways I feel like it makes white's play more awkward and takes away their Nb5 ideas. Usually when someone plays 3.Nd2 against me, I still am a little cautious because it means they have at least some idea what they're doing in the opening and I might be in for a fight. Today started out extremely typical, but my opponent allowed me to take the d4 pawn and then played a dubious knight move that also gave up the e5 pawn. I was worried I'd missed something tricky, but it looks like they just straight up lost those two pawns and now I had a comfortable advantage. I tried to leverage this into a kingside attack, but I just couldn't get my pieces into the game quic...

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...

I wasn't sure if I would queue up today, but I decided to keep the streak going even though it's not a work day.  I got matched up against someone rated ~1570 and was ready for a fight, but they abandoned the game and I had to queue again. Second matchup was 1299 and I had black yet again, but what can you do? My opponent opened 1.d4, which is definitely less common at my rating, but I've been studying my Grünfeld Defence and was hoping to put some of my practice to work, so I dove right in with 1...Nf6. White annoyingly responded with 2.Nf3, which could still transpose, but then they brought out their other knight, played Bf4, e3, and the slow h3, hammering out all the moves nearly instantly. Clearly this was some kind of system they use, like a London except with an earlier Nc3 and the over-cautious h3.  I think I played fairly well in an unknown opening, and my opponent made a strategic error by capturing my c-pawn and opening the long diagonal for my dark square b...

Yet another game that took way too long because I failed to convert a significant advantage in the middlegame. I'm pretty frustrated to experience a repeat of yesterday's problem, though at least I held this game to a draw. It's very clear that I need to work on playing safe moves faster, because running out of time and trying tactics to force trades is not working out so well.  In my defense, I was playing this game before we went out to dinner and I just wanted it to finish so I could go eat. Probably not the best psychological configuration for patient play.   I don't have a lot of time to narrate at great length here, so I'm going to just post the annotated game.

As a French Defense player, I usually don't mind seeing the exchange French, because the people who play it at my level often do so to avoid knowing much theory in the French. From Black's perspective, it makes life comparatively easy in the opening, freeing the light square bishop and letting black equalize early. However, because none of the people who play the Exchange variation against me know what they're doing, I'm ALSO not very good at the theory in this line. "Play Bd6, develop your pieces, and wing it" is pretty much where I get off. Didn't work out so well today. My opponent played an early Qe2+, giving a check before either of was developed. I know this isn't great for white, but then wasted too much time trying to figure out what to do about it. I opted not to trade queens and we ended up in a SUPER SHARP line in which my opponent completely ruined my kingside. I managed to extricate myself with some tactics, but at the cost of almost a...