Game 29

Game 29 was the fourth with Nygren.  Full game here.

In our postmortem, he asked me what I was thinking when I moved 9...c5.  My thought, at that point of the game, was to try to open up the middle or move it along to c4.  I also wanted to get my rook on the c file.  He said that it wasn't a good move because it created an isolated pawn (on d5).  He was right.  I could not defend it well after.  He also noted that I should not have have been trading pieces with an isolated pawn; but that I should be supporting it and trying to advance it.  So, I was going about it all wrong.  But I really welcomed the feedback.  After doing a full analysis with Fritz 11, it didn't have any feedback for me on that move.

The next part I wanted to look at was 12...Nce4.  Fritz 11 gives me a =+, but I didn't quite pull off the pawn capture like I was thinking.  He responded 13. Rc1 followed by my Bg4.  Instead of Bg4, I should have captured his knight with 13...Nxc3 14. Rxc3 Rxc3 15. bxc3 h6 16. Bxf6 Bxf6 and I'd still be slightly better ... I could still attempt to capture the c-pawn with Qc7.  But instead of playing 13...Nxc3, I played Bg4 and you can see this resulted in the opening of my castled king as well as going down a pawn.  From that point on, I struggled to stay in the game.

The game continued - his rook and queen were playing a deadly game of cat and mouse with my king.  I was trying desperately to get my queen back into the thick of things.  It was looking pretty clear he was going to win, and so I decided to try to last for as many moves as I possibly could; even trying to get a perpetual check so as to draw the game.  He was able to trade rooks with me and win my other glimpse of hope - a pawn with a wide-open file ahead of him.  Now he had a pawn in the middle heading to be queened.  My king was stuffed to the side and I was trying to get a perpetual check.  After moving 37...Qc5, I was expecting him to play either h4 or Qh8+.  After that, His pawn could just saunter on down.  But he played g4+ after which I played fxg3+.  39. Qxg3 would have been fine, but he played Kxg3?? after which I finished it off with Qg1#.

I felt badly for him.  The game was his except for that blunder.  He was very gracious in the postmortem and I was very appreciative of him playing me those four games and going over them.

My pool of people to play is about to dry up.  I need more players to play!  I'd prefer to play a 4-game series of 75 15 games, but one-off games are perfectly ok too.  G/60, 45 45, G/90 ... whatever ... just that it's a longish game.  I'll play pretty much anyone ... I think I'd have to draw the line at 1875.  If you're around the 1875, give or take 25 rating points, I'm not sure I'd be of any use other than to be utterly humiliated :-) ... but if you're 1875 or below, I'd  be willing to take a shot.

Leave a comment if you want to play; or shoot me an email at hotmail dot com.