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thereaper1
05-Apr-14, 21:32
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 Recovering from a piece down in the opening
Just thought I would share this game I played probably about a year ago. It was on a chess forum in a king of the hill tournament where I was already king, so I needed only a draw.
I blunder a piece in the opening and had been about to resign, however I saw that I could get a slight initiative so opted to play on a few more moves. Well somehow white found themselves in a knot and black managed to slowly surely keep control over the game. What's perhaps even more amazing is that white doesn't even seem to make any obvious mistake, at least no clear tactical blunder.
I had actually been planning on making an annotation of this game for some time now, but it just feels like too much work making quality annotations at the moment.
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Bd7 5.c4 Bc6 6.Nc3 Nf6 7.Be3 Nbd7 8.d5 exd5 9.cxd5 Nxd5 10.Nxd5 Bxd5 11.Qxd5 Bb4+ 12.Bd2 Qe7+ 13.Be2 0-0-0 14.Bxb4 Qxb4+ 15.Qd2 Qe4 16.f3 Qg6 17.g3 Rhe8 18.Kf1 Nb6 19.Qa5 Kb8 20.Rc1 Nd5 21.Kf2 Qf6 22.Rd1 c6 23.Rd2 Qe6 24.Qa3 Rd7 25.Qd3 Nf6 26.Qc3 Nd5 27.Qd4 f5 28.h4 f4 29.gxf4 Qh6 30.Bc4 Nb6
obviously white should easily play on in the final position. But white was disgusted with their oversight and opted to resign instead since in order to take over the king of the hill they would have to win the position.
I guess it goes to show that losing a piece isn't the end of the world after all, I mean immediately after blundering the material the first thing I did was initiate more exchanges but somehow it all worked out.
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What it really shows is that extra pieces don't mean a whole lot if you leave them in the corner for the whole game!
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@reaper1:
I did this a few months ago against a much stronger opponent. His rating is about the same as blitzkov's now. I posted this in three different threads. Two of which where, "It can be done", plus in the chess forum. One reason why it's important, is as you recall in my misstep against blitzkov, where my opening was quite weak and blundered a piece away early. So, I felt that I had counterplay even though I didn't and you rightly pointed out, that in general, blundering away a piece for a pawn generally=an easy win for you opponent. Well, that's not always the case, even against a much stronger opponent, so I'm glad I didn't resign early.
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In fact, this was my worse game since around the time of that misstep, which is more then a year ago. Now, in my game against Jack Stockel, I was black and he was white. Of course, he should've easily won but made one mistake that ended it all. I, however, did not give up hope since he had repeadetly, in the past said, "Don't give up right away", which is the main reason that my rating is this high, let alone 1000. The opening was ok. The middle game, however, was horrible. I actually made horrible mistakes that were well south of my rating, even at the time, which is when my rating was more then 50 points south of what it is today. The blunders were so bad that I wound up giving away two pawns+ a R. To make matters worse, Jack was very close to promoting one of his pawns. On the other hand, I made it up in the endgame. And, the position looked like this. In this position, white's last move was 1.Bxg7?? Normally that works, especially because of how far ahead he is. That, it would add insult to injury and make the position even more hopelessly. In fact, on a normal basis, given the circumstances, it would actually be safe to resign, and I'd probably wait to do it until a promotion. But, not this time. As it turns out by taking he overlooked a missed a mating threat that I was about to take advantage of. So, right after 1.BXP, I played the immediate 1...Bb3+ After which, he immediately resigned. The reason being is that once the K gets out of check, I could and would've mated with my R. The moral is that no matter what the situation, even if you are in a hopelessly lost position, don't give up because you don't know when your opponent will blunder and give you the advantage back. What happened in this game is the best example I could think of since it involved an opponent whose actually a Class A Player.
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PS: I actually have a chess puzzle on this game. And it is shown below.  puzzle #113199
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baddeeds
27-Apr-14, 15:14
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Deleted by baddeeds on 27-Apr-14, 15:59.
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baddeeds
27-Apr-14, 15:59
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Deleted by baddeeds on 27-Apr-14, 17:02.
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baddeeds
27-Apr-14, 17:02
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Deleted by baddeeds on 27-Apr-14, 17:29.
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baddeeds
27-Apr-14, 17:17
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Deleted by baddeeds on 27-Apr-14, 17:29.
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baddeeds
27-Apr-14, 17:28
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Deleted by baddeeds on 27-Apr-14, 18:23.
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In fact, the position looked more like an was actually similar to this diagram. That's because in the actual game, white's R was not left en-prise. And, he had some passed pawns, one which very nearly promoted. Proof of just how desperate the situation really was. Note: The reason for so many deletions is because I spent so time to trying to and finally getting a position that's as close to accurate as possible so that you have a good idea of what actually went down.
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@thereaper1
What's interesting to note is the thing about unsound aggression. This game, however, I won, despite being a piece down. But, unlike before, I wasn't too happy. While not horrible, it was not a great game. Ok, in my first game against Jack Stockel last Friday, I was white and he was black. I played the Ruy Lopez. I was doing fine right in the opening. But, then we switched, since Tom came in. Therefore, the person that Jack switched with is Ted. Once that happened, I started made a terrible, similar to what you saw in my misstep against blitzkov. This time, though, I created a mating threat which I thought was very difficult to drive off. I thought that black would have to lose his Q to prevent mate. But, I clearly wasn't thinking along the lines, and forgetting about what I taught others on what the opponent could do. Worth noting that I was sleeped deprived, which really didn't help. Anyway, the move I made which I thought would be difficult to drive lost a piece, early in the game. Not only that, but the situation was getting worse and worse for white. So, I had to think of something for any hope of counterplay, since the position was already almost lost for white, and from your POV based on your commentary with my annotations it was lost, but I was not going to resign. The only thing I could come up with was gambiting my R, a true gambit though. The idea was that if Ted were to take one of my R's, I would win his Q in the next two moves. That's because I'd use my strong N to, this time, effectively fork his Q and K because nothing else was there to attack it. Meaning, that it wasn't attacked. Well, that's exactly what happened, and he then played his best. But, later, I was able to come up with a way to win little more material, and eventually, during the endgame, mate him in a way he didn't expect. However, with best from black and had Jack kept playing, I wouldn't have stood a chance. Instead of taking that R, Ted could've taken the same B that took my R. Had this happened, not only would I be another piece down, but unlike before, there would've been a weakness around my K. Therefore, it would've been exposed making it a win for him. The only two things I learned from that game were that sometimes gambits are effective, but you have to access the situation because if there's any way around it and your opponent figures it out, then you're in much worse shape. And, sometimes you have to think defensively, as opposed to, aggressively. That's what it takes to become a stronger player. Afterall, doing things defensively, is a major part of accessing the situation because that's looking out for your opponents plans.
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saintinsanity
20-Jul-14, 01:17
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i was not able to recover
Against Stal. I may have been able to, but I will have to analyze the game when it is over.
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My game vs pixelhermit
After losing a Bishop out of the opening I tried really hard, and ran the game out to 80+ moves so far but it seems the mating net is getting tightened. I will fight on valiantly until I see no hope whatsoever, but it will be an uphill battle for sure.
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