\jeff{krimmel}

A Decent Win at Chess

I am very much a beginner at the game of chess, but I have been playing a few games of late on Yahoo! Chess. In fact, I’ve played over 20 games, so I have developed a rating (as opposed to being labeled “provisional”). I have a paltry rating of 1150 (which is in the lowest bracket they have), but I get a win every now and then that I’m proud of. I was playing someone tonight whose rating was about 150 points higher than mine, and I must say I earned a nice victory.

I have pasted the game in PGN format at the very end of this post. I play the black pieces in this particular game. You can copy the text, visit this site, and paste the text into the long narrow column to the right of the chess board to watch the game move by move. The buttons directly beneath the chess board allow you to step through each move individually or just watch the game played out in full (but obviously at a much quicker pace than the moves were actually played).

The first two moves we each made were very standard. My opponent’s third move scared me, because I envisioned it followed by “4. d4″ which would have allowed a trade of one of my opponent’s non-center pawns for one of my center pawns. A very bad trade that would have been for me. In response, I offered my “f” pawn in a sacrifice (”3. … f7-f5″), which my opponent took, ceding control of the center of the board to me. We traded knights, and then I lost one of my center pawns (which was okay, because I was the only one with a center pawn at all after this point).

I must admit I was afraid after move 10, when I had traded my knight for my opponent’s bishop and left my king wide open to attack. But, I forced a trade of bishops, and then traded my last bishop for my opponent’s rook, and the game was pretty much sealed from there. After checking my opponent a couple of times, I forced a trade of one of my rooks for my opponent’s queen. The last nine sets of moves were playing out the inevitable, until my opponent finally resigned after my 29th move.

Like I said, I am very much a beginner. Looking back through the game, both of us blundered several times. A couple of moves we each made were downright irrelevant (just a waste of an oh so precious move). I am just trying to focus on learning as much as I can from each game rather than just playing for the sake of playing. Some games I get trounced, and I just forget about those. Regardless, it’s a good way to spend half of an hour when I have nothing better to do.

1. e2-e4 e7-e5
2. g1-f3 b8-c6
3. c2-c3 f7-f5
4. e4xf5 d7-d5
5. d2-d4 c8xf5
6. f3xe5 c6xe5
7. d4xe5 f8-c5
8. f1-d3 g8-h6
9. 0-0 0-0
10. c1xh6 g7xh6
11. f1-e1 f5xd3
12. d1xd3 c5xf2+
13. g1-f1 f2xe1+
14. f1xe1 d8-h4+
15. g2-g3 h4xh2
16. d3-e2 h2xg3+
17. e1-d2 a8-d8
18. e5-e6 f8-f2
19. d2-e1 f2xe2+
20. e1xe2 d8-e8
21. e2-d1 e8xe6
22. d1-c2 e6-e2+
23. c2-b3 e2-e1
24. a2-a4 h6-h5
25. b3-a2 h5-h4
26. b1-d2 e1xa1+
27. a2xa1 g3-f4
28. d2-b3 f4xa4+
29. a1-b1 a4xb3