TeamLeague Round 2

This week’s TeamLeague match saw me with the black pieces and matched up with a player that was several hundred rating points lower than me. At this low level a lower rating can give you a false sense of security as your opponent will likely make some mistakes and probably doesn’t understand much theory in the positions. I am also a lower rated player and as my last post shows I have the ability to lose many games when I play too fast.  A quick review of my opponent’s games shows he is a e4 player as white, however, he has lost many games in the opening. I have been working on the Taimanov Sicilian recently and figured that I could get a really good position out of the opening and maybe even gain an advantage with black. 

My goals for the game were to play as far down the Sicilian line as he would allow for, not to make one move blunders (I failed miserably on this one), and play well and win an endgame where I am hopefully up at least a pawn.


As you can see from the game (below)  I made several mistakes in the opening and my opponent should have equalized and we both missed to deadly knight forks that should have cost me the game. I thought I did play a few nice tactics which allowed me to win a major piece and to let me liquidate material at the end of the game. All in all I am not happy with this game as I made way to many mistakes and I was moving way to quickly in a G/45 +45 I should not have ended up with over an hour on the clock when the game was over better time management should lead to better vision on the board and allow me to spot all of the knight forks.

As always leave me a comment below and happy chess to everyone.

	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
8									8
7									7
6									6
5									5
4									4
3									3
2									2
1									1
	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H

WashingtonIrving 1128 - Caseylj 1310

0-1 (FICS rated standard game) 2016.05.02

[#] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 e6 3.e5? Only one 2500+ in my database has played this 3...Nc6 4.c4 Nge7 Going to gather up my pawn 5.d3 Ng6 6.g3 Ngxe5 7.Nxe5 Nxe5 up a pawn, not a bad way to start 8.Qe2 Nc6 wasn't sure of the prospects of Ng6 so go back after grabbing the loot 9.Bf4 e5 This was bad need to prep with d6 first worst comes to worse and we will be even in material if he takes 10.Nc3 d6 After d6 Nd4 and looking for some good Knight forks. Best case i go up the exchange. 11.Bg2 Nd4 Forces the Queen off the d file to win the dark squared bishop. 12.Qd2 exf4 13.gxf4 nice tactic to win the other bishop or to trade them off on f1 13...Bh3 14.Bxh3?? wins the Queen 14...Nf3 15.Kf1 Nxd2 16.Ke2 Nxc4 17.dxc4 Qe7 18.Kf3 Qh4 19.Bf5 i played too fast here wanted to get castled and was willing to drop the bishop to do is as i am up considerable material. 19...Be7 20.Rae1 O-O 21.Nd5 the next few moves I made considerable mistakes as I was just trying to simplify the position and should have given back the Queen but he missed it twice 21...Rae8 22.Bd7 Qh5 23.Kg2 Rd8 i thought this was a nice little sequence 24.Rxe7 Rxd7 25.Rxd7 Qg4 26.Kf1 Qxd7 27.Rg1 b5?? Diagram [#] 28.b3?? Qf5?? I was so happy he missed the fork i walked into another one just as deadly. if he finds this i am lost 29.Ne3?? Qb1 Get out of dodge and gather up some pawns, I will repeat a few times to see if he blunders the rook 30.Kg2 Qg6 31.Kf1 Qb1 32.Kg2 Qxa2 33.cxb5 Qxb3 34.Nd5?? now I can relax a bit 34...Qxd5 35.Kf1 Re8 36.Rg3 This idea is on the tactics trainer on Chess24 36...Qh1 37.Rg1 Re1 38.Kxe1 Qxg1 39.Kd2 Qxf2 40.Kd3 Qxf4 41.Kc3 d5 42.Kb3 Qxh2 43.Ka4 Qa2# White checkmated [0-1]