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Interesting geometries sometimes arise on the chess board. In the game I’m going to talk about today, my opponent’s king and queen became curiously isolated from the rest of their pieces in the middle game, in what I’ve labelled a triangle of doom. They also led with an unorthodox opening, the Mengarini Opening, which is where white starts with the waiting move of pushing a flank pawn one square to a3.

What went wrong for my opponent? Although a3 didn’t place white at a disadvantage, it effectively resulted in a loss of tempo. This allowed me to take the centre with my pawns. Their inaccurate manoeuvre in developing and undeveloping the knight resulted in a further falling behind. Then, for almost the entire game, my opponent’s queen was their own active piece, leading to an even further loss of tempo with it being harrassed by my less valuable pieces. Once I had infiltrated my opponent’s position and back rank with rook and queen, creating the “triangle of doom”, the game was over.

This game demonstrates the rationale for the general opening principles. Try to control the centre with your pawns, and take the centre with both if you can. Don’t bring out your queen early without good reason. Develop your pieces, prioritising knights over bishops. Castle to put move your king out of the centre and activate your rook.

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

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/44769565067

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.04.26"]
[Round "?"]
[White "kumarrengaraj"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C20"]
[WhiteElo "1316"]
[BlackElo "1270"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "20:48:58 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. a3 d5 3. Nc3 d4 4. Nb1 Nf6 5. d3 Nc6 6. Qf3 Be7 7. h3 Be6 8. Be2 Qd6 9. Qg3 g6 10. Bg5 Nh5 11. Bxh5 gxh5 12. Bxe7 Qxe7 13. Qg7 O-O-O 14. Qh6 Rhg8 15. Qxh5 Rg7 16. Qf3 Rdg8 17. g4 h5 18. gxh5 Rxg1+ 19. Rxg1 Rxg1+ 20. Kd2 Qg5+ 21. Ke2 Qc1 22. h6 Qe1# 0-1