Friday, July 23, 2021

The Price of Adventurism

Here is a game I played today on chessbase. My higher-rated opponent gets duly punished for his materialism in the opening.

1 d4 d5 2 c4 Nf6 This is being played a lot against me recently. The point of it is unclear to me. 3 Nc3 I have not yet gone to the trouble of exploring the nuances of 3 cd. Consulting a database, I see now that 3 cd scores much better than 3 Nc3, with 73% wins for white! Normal play continues 3...Nxd5 4 e4 Nf6 5 Nc3 e6 6 Nf3 Be7 7 Bd3 0-0 8 0-0 and white's win percentage is now 95.5%!!

3...Bf5 This seems too adventurous, but it scores about as well as any other move except 3...g6. 4 e3? This is white's worst move. Best seems to be 4 Qb3, hitting the undefended pawn at b7. 4...e6 5 Nf3 Nc6 6 a3 Here I managed to find the most usual move for white.

6...h6 7 Bd3 BxB 8 QxB Na5 9 cd Nb3? Here is where black goes wrong. 10 de?! I miss 10 Qb5+, picking off the N/b3. Still, I have a 3-point advantage. 10...NxR 11 ef+ KxP 12 Nd2 c5 The engine now has it equal, but his next move gives me a slight advantage.

13 0-0 Be7 14 Qb1 cd 15 ed Re8 16 QxN The engine actually now has black slightly ahead. 16...Qxd4 17 Nf3 Qb6 18 Qa2+ Kf8?? This runs into mate. Correct is 18...Kg6 and the game goes on. 19 Ne5 Red8 20 Qf7#. An entertaining game.

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