Game 1 of 52

So I decided to really do it.  My goal is to play 52 of any G/90 or G/120 games I can get over the next year.  What I mean by "any G/90 or G/120 game I can get", I mean OTB, games over the Internet or against Chessmaster (Grandmaster Edition) - in that order of preference.

Generally speaking, I want to play one game a week, but I realize there will be times when I won't get a game in for a week and there will be times when I can get multiple games in a week (i.e. tournament).

At Least it's a Start
I sent out a seek on FICS this morning, but got no takers for a G/90.  So I fired up Chessmaster and played the Seb personality.  A sub-goal, now, is to raise my embarrassing CM rating ... after my lost to Seb this morning, I'm at 898.

I still need to work on taking more time and looking at all variations.  I got burned this morning for not seeing a fork.  Also, as a TL team member told me, I need to play more defensive chess.  In other words, I need to improve at looking for tactics against me and not just be looking for tactics to score against my opponent.

White to move

Here is the position right before I moved 15. Rb1 followed by Black's 15 ... Bxd2 16. Qxd2 Qe4!

While considering Rb1, my "defensive tactic antennae" (which I need to develop) should have shot up ... seeing that there is the potential for the forking of the rooks.  After seeing the potential fork, I should have either developed a defense of it or tossed the Rb1 move out.

I think Fritz suggested Bg2.

The other key mistake I made was in the opening ... another theme of my mistakes.  After 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. Bg5 c5 I decided to move 4. c4?  It really makes no sense now that I look at it.  The only reason I can think of about why I made this move was because of a game I was reading in Logical Chess Move by Move ... it had seemed to me the c2 pawn should have been on c4.  Even that doesn't make much sense because the move sequence in the book was different.

Anyway, the correct 4th move should have been e3 or e4.

Developing the Habit
Next steps now ... I need to return and play another game.  I need to get this weekly habit going.  Unfortunately, we are leaving on a family vacation for the next week and a half and I won't have a chance to play until the week of August 22.  The good news is that my schedule is fairly clear from August 22 to the end of the year and therefore nothing should trip me up on trying to form this habit.