A Bagatelle

I unearthed my Maurice Ashley Teaches Chess CD the other day with thoughts that I might be able to use it with my "Chessboard Math" groups at a nearby school. I loaded it on my machine at work to be sure that the 1995 program would run under Windows XP. It did, no problem.

Wandering through MATC, I rediscovered the fact that it has a chessplaying engine, designed to give novices a decent game without embarassing them. When I had a free 5 minutes, I dashed off a game.

Of course, it had to be a Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+).

Here's the light-hearted romp.

Kennedy - MATC
blitz 2008

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+ Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ke6 7.Qf5+ Kd6 8.f4 b5



Where did that come from?? There's a whole lot of trouble for White with 8...Qh4+, instead.
9.Qxe5+ Kc6 10.Qd5+ Kb6 11.d4



Moving too fast... Moving too fast... Making my moves too fast...

I was taking seconds on each move, so when I got to my 11th move I thought "Can't take the Rook on a8, he'll play 11...Bb7 and my Queen is trapped!"

I should never move so fast that I can't think straight...

11...Bb4+ 12.c3 Bb7


All of a sudden Black's goofy 8th move "works."

13.Qe5 Be7



A lucky break for me: 13...Bd6 is stronger (as MATC decides next move).

14.Be3

Here's a goofy line Fritz8 came up with later, showing some of what was hidden in the position: 14.a4 d5 15.Qxg7 Qd7 16.a5+ Ka6 17.Qxh8 Bf7 18.Nd2 Bxh8 19.Nb3 Qc6 20.Nc5+ Qxc5 21.dxc5 dxe4 with an unclear position.

14...Bd6 15.d5+ Ka6 16.Qd4 Nf6



Now I'm winning, but a safer route for Black (when White still has an edge) was pointed out by Rybka 3: 16...c5 17.dxc6 dxc6 18.a4 c5 19.Qd3 Kb6 20.Na3 a6 21.axb5 Be7 22.Qc4 axb5 23.Bxc5+ Bxc5 24.Qxb5+ Kc7 25.Qxc5+ Kb8 26.0–0 Qe7 27.Qd4 Nf6 28.e5 Ne4 29.Nc4 Rd8 30.Rxa8+ Bxa8 31.Qb6+ Bb7. Of course, Rybka had 5 minutes per half move to think on it...

17.a4 Qe7 18.axb5+ Kxb5 19.c4+ Kb4 20.c5+ Kb5 21.Nc3 checkmate

Ok, ok, I missed a couple of mates-in-one at the end there...