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Last week, I managed to win another match from the Team Australia 2022 Australia Day Tournament! With up to 3 days per move, this game took two months to complete! I didn’t play the most accurately in this game, and made some fairly aggressive moves, and blunders. What I found quite funny was that I managed to put my opponent’s bishop in gaol – we’ll see this in the analysis of the game!

One of the interesting things about losing rooks early in the game is that the loss is often not felt. The rook wasn’t participating anyway. In this game, an earlier blunder with my knight resulted in my opponent sniping my rook with their bishop. Although I suspected that with optimal play that this was probably bad for me, closing the door on the bishop with my pawn, locking it into the corner, meant that I had trapped one of my opponent’s most active pieces. I thought that this was a worthwhile trade, and I managed to covert. I few tricky knight moves later, I was back ahead, up a full piece.

I hope you found this game interesting, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/381986833

[Event "TA 2022 Australia Day Tournament Div 3  ratings up to 1150 - Round 1"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.01.25"]
[Round "?"]
[White "mewoch"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C65"]
[WhiteElo "1073"]
[BlackElo "1080"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[EndDate "2022.03.23"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bb5 Nf6 5. Nbd2 Bb4 6. c3 dxc3 7. O-O cxd2 8. Nxd2 Bxd2 9. Bxd2 a6 10. Bc4 Nxe4 11. Bf4 b5 12. Bd5 Nf6 13. Re1+ Ne7 14. Bxa8 c6 15. Qd4 O-O 16. Qe3 Ned5 17. Qe5 Nxf4 18. Qxf4 Nd5 19. Qe4 Nc7 20. Re3 Nxa8 21. Rh3 f5 22. Qe5 Qf6 23. Re3 Qxe5 24. Rxe5 d6 25. Re7 Nb6 26. Rae1 Nd5 27. Re8 Nf6 28. R8e7 f4 29. g3 fxg3 30. f3 gxh2+ 31. Kxh2 Bd7 32. Rg1 Rf7 33. Re2 Nd5 34. Re4 Rxf3 35. Reg4 Bxg4 36. Rxg4 Rf2+ 37. Kg3 Rxb2 38. Kh4 Rb4 39. Kg5 Rxg4+ 40. Kxg4 Nc3 0-1