I played a 2+0 casual game on lichess.org against a player who I had lost against previously, so I was thrilled to get a shot at revenge. I reached the position below from a Caro–Kann defense, my opponent just played 13. dxc5:
I can't immediately take back the pawn, and my opponent is threatening to play b4 to protect it, so I played 13. ... a5 14. a3 (once again threatening b4) 14. ... a5, preventing b4 once more (or so I thought). My opponent decided to play 15. b4?! anyway:
I took with 15. ... axb3 16. Qxb3, and here in an attempt to regain the pawn I played 16. ... Qa5:
It might look like the b7 pawn is hanging with Qxb7, but then I would have Qxc3+, so the pawn is poisoned. My opponent tried to hold his pawns together by playing 17. Bd4, but this does nothing to protect c4, so I took with 17. ... Bxc5, still having in mind that 18. Bxc5 Qxc5 19. Qxb7 would leave the c3 pawn hanging with check. But just when I thought the b7 pawn was poisoned, my opponent took it with 18. Qxb7?:
This is a blunder a simply loses a piece on d4, since the c3 pawn is pinned to the king by the queen. So I played 18. ... Nxd4 (18. ... Bxd4 19. Qxc6+ loses):
Stockfish recommends for white to give up the piece on d4 and castle kingside. But my opponent, as many of my opponents do, went for the double-rook sweep (or whatever), and played 19. Qxa8+?? Qxa8 0-1. Stockfish does concede that this variation wins back the piece on d4 however.
The game is available in full here:
No comments:
Post a Comment