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The Sydney Fish Markets is one of my favourite places to visit. Getting some freshly shucked oysters and a hot dish of a live pipis or a lobster with a glass of wine is close to a perfect meal! One of my favourite places to visit at the Fish Markets is the lovely seafood restaurant, The Boatshed Pyrmont, which took over the location from the former seafood institution, Doyles (which unfortunately, didn’t survive the pandemic and the loss of the tourist trade).

I’ve been visiting The Boatshed since they opened. I love the atmosphere and they’ve always been very accommodating of me playing chess inside, even with a tournament sized board! So, today was a perfect Sydney day, rather chilly but sunny, to ride over with my motorcycle and Chessnut GO board! 🤩

Note: watch the motorcycling focussed video (at the bottom of the article) of today’s outing to chillax! 😌

Like my trip to Kurnell, I found myself having a run of losses against live opponents. In my defence, it is quite distracting playing while monitoring the camera! 😅 I had a pretty good game that I thought I could use; I’d found a clever and forcing tactic winning material, but I ruined it by blindly hanging a piece that was obviously under attack. One of the things that I push myself to do with creating these videos and articles is that I want my games to be “pretty”!

So to not overstay my welcome at The Boatshed, I played a game against one of the the intermediate chess.com bots, Maria.

Maria is programmed to play in an aggressive and attacking manner and as such, she accepted the Vienna Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf4?!) – let’s go! She made her first weird move on move 5 with (5… g6?!). I don’t think that I’ve ever seen this response to the Vienna Gambit Accepted lines before, so I thought about it a bit. I wondered – is this some sort of trap programmed into the bot, or, just evidence of the bot “breaking”. I eventually decided on the latter. One of the interesting things about beginner and intermediate rated bots is that they often don’t do very well against the Vienna Game and the Vienna Gambit!

I played the tactical ideas in the Vienna Gambit Accepted – develop the king’s knight to f3 to neutralise the possibility of Qh4+, take the centre with pawns, and then set up an attack on Black’s weak f7-pawn and to attack down the semi-open f-file!

On move 11, Maria played (11… Qe7?). This puts the queen in front of her king on a fully open e-file. Tactically, this must be a mistake (and it was: Stockfish gives an evaluation of almost [+6]!) as the queen is at risk of being pinned! Black could still potentially block such a pin with their pieces – either their light square bishop or c6-knight – and I spent some time thinking this through. I found the correct move, (12. d5!). And a few moves later after some trades, I make the pin with (15. Re1!).

After this it was a matter of mopping up. I still needed to be careful as I traded a rook and bishop for Black’s queen, meaning that Black had a numerical piece majority (rook pair, bishop and knight; vs my rook, queen and bishop). However, the queen is just too powerful and Black’s defences and material quickly fell. Black’s king was rather slippery and I didn’t find a quick elegant mate. Nonetheless, checkmate was inevitable. The tip is to give a check every turn, and to double-/triple-check that there isn’t a stalemate when making any move that doesn’t give check (e.g., to avoid repetition).

Motorcycling | To nowhere in particular…

Game: https://www.chess.com/analysis/game/computer/131614869

[Event "vs Computer"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2024.06.18"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "Maria-BOT"]
[Result "1-0"]
[CurrentPosition "2R5/8/p7/6p1/3Q3P/8/P1Q1B1P1/2k2K2 b - - 0 36"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C28"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Vienna-Game-Falkbeer-Vienna-Gambit"]
[UTCDate "2024.06.18"]
[UTCTime "03:45:05"]
[WhiteElo "1283"]
[BlackElo "1000"]
[TimeControl "1/0"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "03:45:05"]
[EndDate "2024.06.18"]
[EndTime "03:52:50"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/computer/131614869"]
[WhiteUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/3711094.f52a0759.50x50o.ab18600a8723.png"]
[WhiteCountry "17"]
[WhiteTitle ""]
[BlackUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/66746078.1f2a24b1.50x50o.8bb37cee5dd7.png"]
[BlackCountry "95"]
[BlackTitle ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf4 $6 {[%c_effect
f4;square;f4;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
Vienna Gambit Accepted - let's go $1} 4. e5 Ng8 5. Nf3 g6 $6 {[%c_effect
g6;square;g6;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
I was surprised by this move, having not seen it before. I wondered whether it
was some sort of tricky pre-programmed move for the bot. However, it might
simply be that the Maria-BOT does badly against the Vienna Game/Gambit, which
seems to be the case for many lower-rated bots $1} 6. d4 Bb4 $2 {[%c_effect
b4;square;b4;type;Mistake;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
This is an aggressive move, but a relative mistake. Simply, White's c3-knight is
relatively less active/critical to the position, and trading it away is fine for
White.} 7. Bxf4 Nc6 $6 {[%c_effect
c6;square;c6;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]}
8. Bc4 Bxc3+ 9. bxc3 {After the trade, White has a massive centre complex of
pawns} 9... d5 10. exd6 cxd6 11. O-O Qe7 $2 {[%c_effect
e7;square;e7;type;Mistake;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
This is a mistake as Black's queen can get pinned to her king on the fully open
e-file $1} 12. d5 $1 {[%c_effect
d5;square;d5;type;GreatFind;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
This removes the possibility of Black closing the e-file with one of their
pieces $1} 12... Ne5 13. Nxe5 dxe5 14. Bxe5 Qxe5 15. Re1 $1 {[%c_effect
e1;square;e1;type;GreatFind;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
Black is forced to trade their queen for a rook $1} 15... Qe7 16. Rxe7+ Nxe7 17.
Qf3 $6 {[%c_effect
f3;square;f3;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]}
17... Bd7 $6 {[%c_effect
d7;square;d7;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]}
18. d6 Bf5 $6 {[%c_effect
f5;square;f5;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]}
19. Re1 $6 {[%c_effect
e1;square;e1;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]
Stockfish suggests KISS - keep it simple, stupid $1} 19... Rd8 $6 {[%c_effect
d8;square;d8;type;Inaccuracy;path;null;size;100%25;animated;false;persistent;true]}
20. Rxe7+ {[%c_arrow
d6e7;keyPressed;none;from;d6;opacity;0.8;to;e7;persistent;false] But, it
worked $1} 20... Kf8 21. Rxf7+ {[%c_arrow
c4f7;keyPressed;none;from;c4;opacity;0.8;to;f7;persistent;false]} 21... Kg8 22.
Rd7+ {[%c_arrow c4g8;keyPressed;none;from;c4;opacity;0.8;to;g8;persistent;false]
Discovered check $1} 22... Kf8 23. Rxd8+ {[%c_arrow
d8h8;keyPressed;none;from;d8;opacity;0.8;to;h8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
h8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h8;persistent;false] Skewer $1} 23... Kg7
24. Qxb7+ {[%c_arrow
g7h8;keyPressed;none;from;g7;opacity;0.8;to;h8;persistent;false,g7h6;keyPressed;none;from;g7;opacity;0.8;to;h6;persistent;false][%c_highlight
h8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h8;persistent;false,h6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h6;persistent;false]
Deflect the king from the defence of the rook $1} 24... Kh6 25. Rxh8 Bxc2 26.
Qxh7+ Kg5 {Now, there is a king chase. I don't find the most elegant checkmate
though... 😂 The black king is a bit slippery $1} 27. h4+ Kg4 28. Be2+ Kf4 29.
Rf8+ Ke3 30. Kf1 Kd2 31. d7 a6 32. d8=Q+ Kxc3 33. Qhc7+ Kb2 34. Qd4+ Kc1 35. Rc8
g5 36. Qxc2# {[%c_effect
f1;square;f1;type;Winner,c1;square;c1;type;CheckmateBlack] Finally $1 GG $1} 1-0