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Today, I played a game where I managed to force the opponent to give up their queen at the beginning of the middle game! The queen is unambiguously the most powerful piece in the game of chess. Other than the king which by definition cannot be lost, it is the piece that we need to guard most carefully given its value. Thus, I cannot help but feel an devilish sense of glee when I successful execute a clever tactic to force the opponent to lose their queen as I did in this game.

My opponent’s highly committal push with their c-pawn to c5 in the Caro-Kann opening was an error, leading to a long-term weakness on the light-squared diagonal on the queenside attacking the king. This is one of the risks with pushing pawns too early. They can only move forwards so every additional step might leave positional weaknesses behind.

I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game analysis on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/8jsLNhXca

[Event "Rated Rapid game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/DSeYUlwy"]
[Date "2022.01.14"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "AlexBDavis"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.01.14"]
[UTCTime "23:36:45"]
[WhiteElo "1596"]
[BlackElo "1600"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+14"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-10"]
[TimeControl "600+5"]
[ECO "B15"]
[Opening "Caro-Kann Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 {B15 Caro-Kann Defense} 3... c5 4. f4 e6 5. e5 Nc6 6. Nf3 cxd4 7. Nxd4 Nxd4 8. Qxd4 Bd7 9. Bb5 a6 10. Bd3 Bb5 11. Nxb5 axb5 12. Bxb5+ Qd7 13. Bxd7+ Kxd7 14. Bd2 Rc8 15. O-O-O Ne7 16. Qa4+ Nc6 17. a3 Be7 18. Bb4 Bxb4 19. axb4 Ra8 20. Qb5 Kc7 21. Qc5 Rhd8 22. b5 Ra5 23. b6+ Kb8 24. Qf2 f6 25. c3 fxe5 26. b4 Ra1+ 27. Kb2 Rxd1 28. Rxd1 exf4 29. Qxf4+ e5 30. Qf7 Kc8 31. Qc7# {White wins by checkmate.} 1-0