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Making a blunder is simply an integral part of beginner-intermediate chess! Sometimes, the blunders are obvious and I facepalm immediate after making a move. Other times, the blunder is rather more obscure, and is picked up by neither myself or my opponent during the game. These hidden blunders are only found afterwards during analysis and these could have been game changing. The game I played today has one such blunder…

One of the patterns I identified on analysis in this game is that you have to take some extra care with the a-pawn after queenside castling as this pawn isn’t automatically guarded by the king. This weakness can potentially be exploited by an attack on that pawn and my opponent missed a potential fork against me which would have equalised the game. Luckily for me, my opponent didn’t see this tactic either, so I was able to maintain my advantage. I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/35437623359

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.01.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "Igorko76"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C25"]
[WhiteElo "1163"]
[BlackElo "1218"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "19:47:42 PST"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 c6 3. Bc4 h6 4. d4 exd4 5. Qxd4 Nf6 6. Be3 Be7 7. O-O-O b5 8. Be2 c5 9. Qe5 Nc6 10. Qg3 b4 11. Nd5 g5 12. Nxf6+ Bxf6 13. Bxc5 a5 14. Nf3 Bb7 15. e5 Be7 16. Bd6 Bxd6 17. exd6 Qf6 18. Rhe1 O-O-O 19. Bb5 Na7 20. Ba4 Bc6 21. Bxc6 Nxc6 22. Ne5 Nxe5 23. Qxe5 Qxe5 24. Rxe5 Rhe8 25. Re7 Rxe7 26. dxe7 Re8 27. Re1 Kc7 28. Kd2 d6 29. c3 bxc3+ 30. Kxc3 Kd7 31. b4 Rxe7 32. Rxe7+ Kxe7 33. bxa5 Kd7 34. Kb4 Kc7 35. Kb5 Kb7 36. a6+ Ka7 37. Kc6 Kxa6 38. Kxd6 1-0