A Sloppy Chess Game

I recently played a game of online chess against a guy in the Netherlands that I thought was interesting despite a good deal of sloppiness. I managed to screw up less often and was able to finish with a sneak attack that actually worked. Anyway, here are the highlights of the game. I'm Black, and he's White.

The game started off fairly in a standard fashion until I messed up my position after move 9, which led my opponent to make a strong move... 10. Bxf7+. The Crafty engine approves of this move and I'm pretty much entering into a world of hurt. Crafty says I should have just taken the bishop (resulting in +1.95) as my line was inferior (resulting in +2.96). Either way, I'm in a bit of trouble.

Now, he makes a large mistake by moving his Queen. This allows me to take the bishop, and things are looking a bit better for me. However, I'm still in a bad spot. After some exchanges, we wind up in the following position, which according to the engine isn't so bad (+0.70).

I then manage to screw up with 15. ... Be6, which leads to an interesting spot where he forces a material imbalance at move 17. There's no decision here, and we proceed with a Queen + Rook + 6 Pawns vs 2 Rooks + Bishop + Knight + 4 Pawns. Such an imbalance usually makes for an interesting game.

We end up trading off rooks, and I am presented with the following position where I can even the game out. Too bad I suck, and fail to make the right move (21. ... d5 -- the engine puts us at +0.00 following that correct move). I remember I wasn't super worried about the pawn forking my pieces, because I figured I could threaten his Queen with my Knight. But, I overlooked the fact that if he proceeded to fork me and take my Bishop, it would also put me in check giving his Queen an escape. Lucky for me, my opponent didn't take advantage of this.

After a bit more play, I am able to pull the wool over his eyes and pull out a victory. He started to advance his h-pawn, and I was able to trick my opponent by making a move that looked like I was working on stopping it. But, what I had actually done was threatened to mate him on the next move. He fell for it; it's a mistake that only a human could make. Had I not gotten lucky, I think the game ends in a draw, but who knows.


Here's the game and all of its sloppiness in its entirety.

[Event "Challenge"]
[Site "http://www.redhotpawn.com"]
[Date "2009.02.21"]
[EndDate "2009.02.24"]
[White "Some Dutch Player"]
[Black "BruteForce"]
[WhiteRating "1420"]
[BlackRating "1616"]
[WhiteELO "1420"]
[BlackELO "1616"]
[Result "0-1"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Ng1f3 Nb8c6 4. Bf1c4 d6 5. O-O Bc8g4 6. Nb1c3 Ng8f6 7. d4 a6 8. Bc1xf4 Bf8e7 9. e5 Nf6d7 10. Bc4xf7 Ke8f8 11. Qd1d3 Kf8xf7 12. exd6 cxd6 13. Nf3g5 Be7xg5 14. Bf4xg5 Nd7f6 15. Nc3d5 Bg4e6 16. Nd5xf6 gxf6 17. Bg5xf6 Qd8xf6 18. Rf1xf6 Kf7xf6 19. Ra1f1 Kf6e7 20. Rf1e1 Ke7d7 21. a3 Ra8e8 22. Qd3d2 Be6d5 23. Re1xe8 Rh8xe8 24. b3 Re8e4 25. Qd2g5 Re4xd4 26. Qg5g7 Kd7c8 27. Qg7xh7 Kc8b8 28. h4 Nc6e5 29. h5 Kb8a7 30. h6 Ne5g4 31. Qh7g7 Rd4d1 0-1