Saturday, August 8, 2020

An Odd French Game

This is an oddball French game, but for some reason I feel compelled to annotate it, so here goes.  1 d4 e6 2 e4 d5 3 Nc3 Bb4 4 Nge2 a6?  Normal is de, Nc6,or Nf6.  Black's move is weak.

5 a3 Ba5 6 b4 Bb6 7 e5  The engine doesn't like this move, preferring 7 g3.  My thought was that 7 e5 limits the scope of both of his bishops.

7...h6 8 Ng3 Ne7 9 Nce3  The engine prefers 9 Qg4.  It says the position is now equal.

9...Nbc6 10 f4 Ng6 11 c3 f6 12 Nh5 fe 13 fe Qh5+ 14 Neg3 0-0 15 Bd3 Nf4??  The engine gives black a full point advantage after 15...Ngxe5, but that's a tough move to find in a blitz game.  Black's move loses the exchange.

16 BxN RxB 17 NxR QxN 18 Qf3 Qg5 19 Rf1 Qe7 20 0-0-0? (missing 20 Qh5, winning) Bd7 (finally developing his QB) 21 Qh5 Be8 22 Qg4 Nd8 23 Rf2 Nf7 24 Rdf1 c6 25 h4 a5 26 Nh5 Nxe5?  And now white has a forced mate, but black was lost anyway.

The game ended with 27 Rf8+ QxR 28 RxQ+ KxR 29 Qxg7#.


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