My queen is invisible #3

This is the third installment of this series! Why isn't my queen taken seriously!!! I can do stuff with it.

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:

My queen is invisible #2

After a long period of queens behaving normally, I have now encountered two more opponents who gave up their queen to recapture a piece that's defended, for no apparent reason. If you recall, I had encountered two opponents in two days who had done exactly the same thing: use their queen to capture a piece as if the piece was hanging, but which was actually defended by my queen. I had therefore concluded that my queen is invisible, as anyone would.

In the first game below (played yesterday), the same scenario occurred: My opponent captured a piece with their queen, which was protected by my own queen. But in the second game (played today), there was a new twist: My opponent used their queen to capture a piece that was defended by my rook and not my queen! So there is nothing left for me to do but to revise my theory. I now think not that my queen is invisible, but perhaps that my opponents think their queen is invisible? Or maybe invincible? But I will need more games to figure this out.

In the meantime, I've added the category Eerie for this post and the earlier post, for the inexplicable phenomena that we encounter in chess.

In the first game (a 1-minute game on lichess.org), we reached this position after 15. ... h5:

For better or worse, here I decided to play 16. Qb1 to prevent Black from playing the advance d3 (I'm now X-raying that square). My opponent continued his play on the kingside with 16. ... h4, and I responded with 17. g4, preferring to keep things closed where my king is. And then my opponent decided to push his central pawn anyway and played 17. ... d3?:

And after 18. cxd3, my opponent simply played 18. ... Qxd3?? 19. Qxd3.

In the second game (also a 1-minute game on lichess.org), my opponent just made a mistake with 10. ... Bd6?:

This allows me to win a piece with the simple tactic 11. e5 Bxe5 12. Nxe5 Nxe5 13. Bxe5:

And here, my opponent clicked on his invisible queen (or so we think) and played 13. ... Qxe5?? 14. Rxe5.

Both games are available here: 

My queen is invisible!

I have great news: My opponents don’t see my queen (at least sometimes). Maybe it’s only when my opponents are about to move their own queen, I’m not sure yet.

Yesterday I played a rated classical (standard) game on lichess with time control 10 0. This is the position after I played 17. g4. I wanted to open up Black’s kingside (where the king is uncastled) and bring a rook on the eventually-open g-file (or f-file, if lines open up). But my opponent played a move I didn’t think was possible, they played 17. … f4?!, so I responded with 18. exf4, simply winning the pawn. Perhaps Black’s plan could have been to divert my e-pawn to play 18. … d4 (as well as to keep files closed around their king), but no, instead they played 18. … Qxf4??, taking the pawn back:

And they simply resigned after 19. Qxf4+ 1-0.

Then the next day (today), I played a casual (unrated) bullet 2 1 game, and we reached this position:

Here we castled on opposite sides, and I just won a pawn. We’re both planning to attack each other’s king, although my opponent’s attack seems to be coming quite a bit faster--they’ve got both their rooks aligned with my kingside, and the three wing pawns have reached the 4th and 5th ranks. Here I was planning on playing an eventual Bc4, pinning the e6 knight and preventing the move d4, which would prevent my knight from jumping into c4. Eventually I’d also like to develop the queen and bring a rook to the c-file, and play a4, a5, and a6 or b6. But here I decided to hold back on Bc4 in case the bishop is needed for defense on the kingside, so I played 19. Qb3, also preventing d4 and making way for the rooks, with the intention of playing Bc4 next move and pin the knight. My opponent played 19. … g4 and I played 20. Bc4, attacking the knight. Or so I thought--my opponent continued with 20. … g3?, so I took the knight with 21. Bxe6:

And then evidently, my opponent recaptured with 21. … Qxe6?? and resigned after 22. Qxe6 1-0.

So I don’t know what’s going on with my queen…

Both games are available here: