Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The hurrieder I go...

The old saying "The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get" tends to be true for me when I play blitz games with the Jerome Gambit (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5 4.Bxf7+). I keep telling myself to "slow down" – but do I listen?? Here's a wild game, and for once the quickness of it – two minutes, with six second increments – put the heat on my opponent, not me. 

perrypawnpusher - Mences 
blitz 2 6, FICS, 2009 

  1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Bc5

4.Bxf7+ 

It's always fun to see the time lag in my opponent's response after I play this.

4...Kxf7 5.Nxe5+ Nxe5 6.Qh5+ Ng6

Signalling the central-pawns-vs-piece game. 

7.Qd5+ Kf8 8.Qxc5+ d6 9.Qe3 Nf6

10.0-0 Bd7 11.f4 Qe7 12.d3 Kf7 A standard formation. Black is near to castling-by-hand, White has the d3-e4-f4 pawn formation. Black is better, but he will need a plan.

13.Nc3 Rhf8 14.h3 Kg8 15.g4 Bxg4 16.hxg4 Nxg4Black has returned the piece for two pawns, and the game is roughly equal.

17.Qg3 Nf6 18.f5 Ne5 19.Bg5 Qd7 20.d4 Nc4 21.b3 Nb6

Things have progressed according to my plan of keeping the pawns rolling, although I should have prepared my next move with 22.Rad1. 

22.e5 dxe5 23.dxe5 Qd4+ 24.Qe3

Better was 24.Kg2. From here on out Black outplayed me, and I was lucky that his clock ran down. There's a lot for me to learn from studying the following moves.

24...Qg4
25.Kh2 Nfd5 26.Nxd5 Nxd5 27.Qg3

I didn't think that anything bad would happen to me if I got the Queens off of the board. I was not getting any cooperation, however.

27...Qh5+ 28.Kg2 Qe2+ 

Rybka 3 suggests instead 28...h6 29.c4 hxg5 30.cxd5 Rad8 31.d6 Qe2+ 32.Kg1 cxd6 33.e6 as being equal, saying that the text gives White the advantage – but only if he responds to this check with 29.Kg1. 

29.Rf2 Qe4+ 30.Kh3 Making things worse 

  30...Rxf5 31.Rxf5 Qxf5+ 32.Kh4 

From here to the end, my game slips bit-by-bit. 

32...Qg6 33.c4 Nb4 34.a3 Nc2 35.Rf1 Nd4 36.Qf4 Ne6

37.Qe3 h6 38.Be7 

Black forfeits on time 1-0

Good game by Mences!

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