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This was a smooth game where I won a strong advantage from the opening and held it to the endgame. My opponent played with the white pieces played the Center Game – e4 e5 d4 – which is an aggressive opening that is also not especially sound. Although it is not an outright bad opening, as you can see, there is no reason for Black to not accept the gambit, as they win tempo as compensation.

The strategy for White is that they need to hold onto their positional advantage in the centre, and as soon as they let go of this with push their e-pawn forward, their position collapsed with a -3 advantage to Black.

In the early middle game, I further cemented my advantage with winning one of their pieces and forcing their king to move and thus losing their right to castle. I then played conservatively with a goal to trade pieces and push towards an endgame with a one-piece advantage. And as the cherry on top, I managed to win by checkmate with a pawn!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/49081770637

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.06.15"]
[Round "?"]
[White "benjpickup"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C22"]
[WhiteElo "1008"]
[BlackElo "1181"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "19:01:38 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. d4 exd4 3. Qxd4 Nc6 4. Qd2 Nf6 5. Nc3 Bb4 6. e5 Ne4 7. Qf4 Nxc3 8. Bd2 Nd5 9. Qg3 Bxd2+ 10. Kxd2 O-O 11. Bd3 d6 12. Bxh7+ Kxh7 13. Qd3+ Kg8 14. Qxd5 dxe5 15. c4 Qg5+ 16. Kc3 Rd8 17. Nf3 Qf6 18. Qe4 Nd4 19. Qxe5 Nxf3 20. Qxf6 gxf6 21. gxf3 Bd7 22. Rhg1+ Kh8 23. h4 Rg8 24. h5 Rxg1 25. Rxg1 Rg8 26. Rd1 Bc6 27. f4 Kh7 28. b4 a6 29. Kb3 Kh6 30. c5 Kxh5 31. f3 Bxf3 32. Rf1 Bd5+ 33. Ka4 Bc6+ 34. Ka5 Rg2 35. a4 Ra2 36. Rh1+ Kg4 37. Rg1+ Kh4 38. b5 axb5 39. Kb4 Rxa4+ 40. Kb3 Rxf4 41. Re1 Bd5+ 42. Ka3 Ra4+ 43. Kb2 b4 44. Re7 Ra2+ 45. Kb1 b3 46. c6 bxc6 47. Re8 Kg5 48. Rg8+ Kf5 49. Rg1 Rf2 50. Rd1 Be4+ 51. Kc1 b2# 0-1