How Careless Am I
I have to resign from this chess game this morning after just twelve moves.
I am writing this article to warn other chess players, particularly new players like my grandchildren, not to be tempted to repeat the bad moves I did.
The starting game was as it should be done normally. I was playing black.
Yes, the first two moves were those of Sicilian Defense but at move # 3, White changed from the tradition variations to Bc4 from which I replied with Be6, aiming to drive B at c4 away.
- e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. Bc4 Be6
But then, White preferred to do an exchange of the Bishops in 4. Bxe6 fxe6.
White then moved his d pawn in 5. d3 and I (Black) replied with d5, meaning to exchange another pawn, to have two pawns inside the middle four places of the board. CHESS.COM thought this to be an Inaccurate move and preferred me to have taken 5 … Nc6 instead.
Then, 6. Ng5 Qd7, stopping Nxe6. 7. Qg4 dxe4. My last move was meant to encourage White to exchange our pawns at e4. Instead White responded with 8. Nxe6. I responded with a 8. … Nc6.
On reflection, I should have played Nf6 instead, thus threatening the Queen, in the hope of dislodging her such that the White Knight at e6 could be captured.
9. O-O Nd4 Black’s last move is to try to take White’s Knight at e6 by Nxe6. This turned out to be a blunder by the analysis of CHESS.COM According to them, I should continue to threaten the Q by 9. … Nf6
White moved Q just one step to 10. Qh5+ and the chess board now looked thus:
which is pretty grim for White.
My next move was a Big Blunder. 10. … g6 as this left my Rook exposed thus:
11. Qxe5 Nxe6 12. Qxh1 My response then was a weak 12. … Bg7 mistakenly trying to capture the Q.
Instead, White took the Knight at g8 by 13. Qxg8+
I saw myself to be in a hopeless position loosing two valuable pieces in succession. I could of course move 13 … Nf8 or even Bf8 but I saw either of these move to be just prolonging the time of death.
I resigned.
What would be your advice in such a situation?
CHESS.COM analysis said that I had 3 Excellent moves compared to White’s 9 and that I had made 2 Blunders compared to White’s 0.
I went on to revise our beginning moves as advocated in:
https://www.dwheeler.com/chess-openings/