GM vs. Amatuer Opening play
This week I had one goal. Just to play one 45+45 game. It sounded simple but finding a free 3-hour window is not easy. The game included an instructional opening blunder where I followed a game…
Welcome to the 102 new subscribers who joined since the last newsletter.
The newsletter now goes out to 1,926 amazing chess fans!
If you haven't already subscribed yet you can join for free. New subscribers get a 50-page pdf with the 14 annotated games from Capablanca’s classic book ‘Chess Fundamentals’.
GM vs. Amatuer Opening play
This week I had one goal. Just to play one 45+45 game. It sounded simple but finding a free 3-hour window is not easy. The game included an instructional opening blunder where I followed a game played by GM Sandipan up to move 8, so I will use that game to illustrate my mistake.
The act of publicly announcing my goal forced me to find the time. I got a game against a random Lichess opponent.
From the chat during the game, I found out my opponent was a listener of the Perpetual Podcast and knew about the #chesspunks community, so not completely random.
By the way, remember to check out Ben Johnson’s new Substack with a weekly chess roundup!
Okay, back to my game. I pulled my board and pieces out and got ready to play. During the game, I never got into playing it on the board, maybe because I have played too much chess on my phone, so I ended up playing the game looking at the screen.
The next day I had bad back pains because I sat twisted for 2 hours looking at the screen instead of the board. One of my Twitter followers cheered me up with this quote:
Persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises for recreation — not the sort of mental gladiatorship. Those who are engaged in mental pursuits should avoid a chess-board as they would an adder’s nest, because chess misdirects and exhausts their intellectual energies. Rather let them dance, sing, play ball, perform gymnastics, roam in the woods or by the seashore, than play chess. It is a game which no man who depends on his trade, business or profession can afford to waste time in practicing; it is an amusement — and a very unprofitable one — which the independently wealthy alone can afford time to lose in its pursuit.1
With these encouraging words, let us take a look at the opening of the game.
White: headcanon (2080)
Black: SayChessClassical (2115)
Time control: 45+45
Result: 1-0
Link to the game (full game with my annotations)
The opening mistake
1. d4 e6 2. Nc3 I have never faced this move before on Lichess out of 19 games with 1. d4 e6, so I was already a bit unsure what way to go. I decided to go for a possible classical French if 2... d5 3. e4. 2... d5 3. Bf4 Bb4 (3... Bd6 I considered playing this move, which I think is a safe move. I have played it two times before, but I did not want to play boring chess. 4. e3 Nf6 5. Bd3 c5 6. dxc5 Bxc3+ 7. bxc3 I was really happy about having created this triple pawn structure for the price of my DSB and a temporary pawn. 7... Qa5 8. Bd6
Black to play
Here I saw that Kf1 or Ke2 was forced after Qxc3+. That looked very strong in my eyes, so I did not really consider Nbd7. My opponent annotated the position as follows:
“Black should attempt to undermine c5 or get the Queen out of trouble. White's only real problem is castling by hand, but a luft move and bring the rooks out and the queenside is whites.”
Here is a replay of a game where GM Sandipan from India plays the position much better than me. Sandipan played the best move Nbd7 and kept developing. Later he kept the pressure on the c-file with his Rook.
My game continued 8... Qxc3+ 9. Kf1
Here I made the real blunder. Instead of retreating the Queen I got greedy and played 9… Nxc5?? I simply did not think about the problems for my Queen and Knight after the natural Ne2 move. Maybe because the position already was quite abnormal.
The result of my poor judgment is that I end up losing my Knight after 10. Ne2 Qa3 11. Rb3 Qa5 12. Rb5 Qxa2 13. Bxc5 I considered resigning at this point and was quite disappointed with my opening play. I played on and managed to get back into the game after my opponent played some suboptimal moves, but in the endgame, I failed to find the best way to defend and my opponent converted.
What did I learn?
It can be costly to go pawn-grabbing in the opening. I need to be okay with being material down if I get active pieces instead
Queen moves in the opening cost time
Look a move deeper and evaluate the position (I did not look at Ne2 properly)
Work on my concentration. It is clear to me that I was not fully focused during the whole game.
/Martin