Author: J. C. Boco
Date: 15:44:19 03/19/04
This is a game I should have won but managed to lose. I searched the archives but couldn't find the message of the guy who wanted to see it. Sorry I don't remember your name. Star Diamond (White) 40 moves in 57 seconds Estimated to be 1502, given that 40 moves in 2 hours equals 2200. Me (Black) 40 moves in 2 hours 1. f4 Nf6 2. b3 d6 I actually spent 4 minutes on this move, just trying to figure out what the bird opening was. You know, remembering all that deep theory to move 36. 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d3 e5 I think e5 is not book, but anything goes at my level. 5. Nf3 PxP 6. BxP d5 7.e3? This is an error because I now can win material. Although I almost missed it. Here I spent about 10 minutes looking around and demanding that I make use of the fact that S.D played b3 but then his bishop ends up on f4. So I was very proud of myself when I found... 7. ... Bb4 8. Qd2 d4! I spent another 10 minutes on this to make sure it worked. I give myself the exclam because I don't often make good moves. 9. NxP NxN 10. a3 BxN 11. QxB Nc6 Looking good! I'm up 2 pawns. Anyone can win with 2 pawns, right? Anyway, I spent about 5 minutes on this move trying to figure out the best place for the knight. I probably didn't find it, but at least it looks good. I've spent a total of 27 minutes so far. 12. Be2 OO 13. Bg5 Nd5! Another exclam for myself, for a move which took about 9 minutes to make. I could keep my 2 pawn plus, although I'd get doubled pawns. But I wanted to play more dynamically, I wanted to play like just a little bit of Kasparov. So I asked myself what would Kasparov's little toe do, and I decided it would give up a pawn to both prevent doubled pawns, but also to gain an open file. 14. BxQ NxQ 15. BxP Re8 16. e4 Be6? Now my peculiar thought processes give me the boot. Nd4 was better. I've found that when I give myself a "?" I have almost always spent a lot of time on the move. This one took about 8 minutes. Why is Nd4 better? I forgot, actually. I just have that written on my scoresheet and circled. I put this game in REBEL and that's what it liked. 17. Bh5 QRc8. 7 minutes 18. Bf4 Nd4 5 minutes 19. Rc1 Rc5? The computers all like Na2. Of course they do! I should too! Anyway, I'm proud of my advanced knight and wanted to keep it on that square. It does look very nice, doesn't it? It's eyes burn red with rage against the white pieces. But what I should have done is realize that the knight would have to go sometime to allow the rook to blast through. Thus I don't move the knight. Bad decision. The knight is ready for battle but so long as it doesn't have to expend the effort to actually go anywhere. This reminds me of some people I know. Interesting..... Since it's a ? move I didn't spend much time on this move. 20. Be3 Rd8 about 18 minutes on this move. It's hard to know where to place your rooks you know. When I use the salt and pepper at dinner, I often will hold onto them because I can't decide where to put them down. Sometimes I don't season my food because it requires too much thought. 21. Bd1 f5 12 minutes on this move. You may now understand why I often find myself in time trouble in my games. I guess I like the spinning red discs in my Saitek analog chess clock. 22. Bg5 Rd7 23. b4 Rc8 24 PxP BxP OK, I now have 12 minutes left for my next 16 moves. 25. Be3 Re7? It took 2 minutes to make this bad move. It's bad because Na2 is still good. 26. Kd2 QNb5. I spent 5 minutes on this move. Plenty of time left... 27. Bh5 Nd5? One minute spent on this one, when looking at my notes I see that I should have played b6. I can't remember the board position right now typing away, but if you are playing through this game perhaps you can remind me why it's good. 28. Bc5 R7c7 29. QRf1 g6 30. c4 b6! I'm not sure why I gave myself an exclam. Perhaps it was because of my wise use of time. I spent 2.5 minutes on it. Now I have 1.5 minutes remaining. But hey, I'll keep a cool head. Oh, for that guy playing through this, please tell me if b6 rates an exclam. 31. Bf3 b6xc5??? Ugh. First of all, I was now using dashes to mark my moves. When this game was over I had to take the moves back on the computer and fill in the scoresheet. For some reason I did this as I took each move back, and instead of writing down PxP I wrote down what the computer said, namely b6xc5. I only relate this exciting event in case you are wondering why I change to full algebraic now. 32. Wait, back to 31. I don't remember why b6xc5 (or, PxP if you prefer) is bad. I'd play through the game to find out, but memory repression is sometimes a good thing. 32. f3d5 g8g7 33. c4b5 c5b4 34. a3b4 c7c2+ ? I don't remember why the ?. I think pure defensive moves would have kept an even game or something. I probably don't really want to remember. 35. d2e3 c8e8? Bad moves come in pairs. 36. e3d4 c2b2 37. f1e1 e8e1 38. h1e1 b2b4+ 39. d5c4 b4b2 40. e1e7 g7h6 Here we come to a mighty controversial move. I had been ticking off the moves and counting on my fingers, as all strong men are known to do in times of great hardship. In counting my fingers, I made the mistake on remembering something about Kasparov's little toe and I guess I counted that as a move that I didn't really make. The upshot is that I thought the move b4b2 was actually move 40. The result would be a loss on time (I have the computer set at 40 moves in 2.5 hours for me, but I use a chess clock as the official timepiece for me). So that extra time on my Star Diamond clock didn't flag me even though I overstepped on the analog chess clock. I think the computer was thinking "If this moron can actaully lose after having a 2 pawns plus, I don't need to flag him. I also probably only need to use 2 AA batteries to beat him rather than all four. 2 AA heavy duty batteries, not the alkaline ones, and possible ones that had been in the smoke detector for awhile first, or that flashlight in the back of the drawer. 41.e7a7 b2g2 42. ----------------- 43. b6 RxP In fixing my scoresheet and discovering the error, I left 42 blank. So 43 is actually 42, you get the drift. 44. Bg8 g5 Speaking of drift, isn't this game an effortless demonstration on how to drift from a win to a loss? 45. Kc3 Rh3 46. b7 Resigns "Maybe I'll rub some salt in the would and flash my Low Batt signal".
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