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I managed to make it to the third and final round of the Team Australia, 2022 Australia Day Tournament (Division 3) on chess.com! This is match 4 of 8 and I’ve managed to win my first three matches!

I entered the final round with the lowest rating. The contestants:

• vitualis (the chess noob!) – 1158
• @gothedogs – 1159
• @KnightBeatsAll – 1186
• @edwardsl – 1229
• @flylikeaD6 – 1266

I’m really excited that I’ll have a good chance of coming within the top three and getting a (virtual) medal! I’m going to covering each of my matches, win or lose, in this round.

Match 4 was a rematch against @KnightBeatsAll – I had the black pieces and they white. My opponent used the Scotch Game – a great opening for White. As per my usual recent practice, I respond with the spicy Steinitz Variation, and as expected we entered the Modern Defense line (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 5. Nc3 Bb4).

Having analysed the Steinitz Variation line, I knew that White’s next best move was the unintuitive (6. Be2), but this is rarely found by Scotch Game players at the beginner-intermediate level. My opponent instead opted to immediately capture my knight (6. Nxc6), a move that I knew in the game was probably bad (it was, Stockfish calls it an inaccuracy with an evaluation of [-0.28]), but at the same time, I was out of theory so had to calculate and reason on my own!

The immediate response was obvious – capture the hanging e4 pawn with check (6… Qxe4+). My next move was a relative tactical error. I opted to now capture the knight on c6 with my queen (7… Qxc6) and this gave some advantage back to White. Retrospectively, the best move made a lot of sense. Stockfish recommended capturing the knight first with bishop, which comes with check (7… Bxc3+) and forces White to damage their pawn structure to recapture. Only then capture the knight with the queen. Interestingly, Stockfish really wanted me to take their knight with the bishop and this is an idea that I’ll remember for future games!

The next few moves saw both of us awkwardly develop pieces with each move considered relative inaccuracies or mistakes. I had captured a small advantage in the early middle game. However, with both of us having our queens as the most developed piece, it is easy to make mistakes. And I did on several consecutive moves!

I had formed an aggressive, but also speculative attacking idea. My queen was on the g-file facing the White king. I thought that if I could get my light square bishop to h3, I would have a powerful mating threat, and I was willing to sacrifice some pawns to make it happen. Except, this just didn’t work without my opponent missing the obvious attack, and it was easy for them to refute the idea and simply be up material.

By move 16, I realised that my position was slipping, and I rushed out an attack, infiltrating my rook onto the second rank. Almost immediately after the move, I saw that I had made a blunder, and Stockfish agreed it was a bad mistake [+5.71]. My rook and queen were on the same diagonal and could have been forked by my opponent’s bishop.

Luckily for me, my opponent seemed to have a potential blindness for diagonals and didn’t see this winning tactic. Instead, I think they thought that they had a forced win by back rank mate and played (19. Rc8). Except… diagonals. The c8 square was defended by my bishop from across the board, meaning that (19. Rc8) was a devastating blunder [-7.64]. After the capture (19. Bxc8) my opponent resigned, and I capture my fourth win in this round!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/427122527

[Event "TA 2022 Australia Day Tournament Div 3  ratings up to 1150 - Round 3"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.08.29"]
[Round "-"]
[White "KnightBeatsAll"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Tournament "https://www.chess.com/tournament/ta-2022-australia-day-tournament-div-3-ratings-up-to-1150"]
[CurrentPosition "2b2rk1/pQ3ppp/3p2q1/8/8/P4B2/1P1r1PPP/4R1K1 w - - 0 20"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C45"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Scotch-Game-Steinitz-Modern-Defense"]
[UTCDate "2022.08.29"]
[UTCTime "02:41:02"]
[WhiteElo "1159"]
[BlackElo "1176"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]
[StartTime "02:41:02"]
[EndDate "2022.08.30"]
[EndTime "10:43:28"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/daily/427122527"]

{[Game 4]} 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 5. Nc3 Bb4 {Scotch Game: Steinitz Variation, Modern Defense [+0.62]} 6. Nxc6 $4 {An inaccurate move [-0.28] and Black gains the advantage} 6... Qxe4+ 7. Be2 Qxc6 {Immediately forcing simplifications with Bxc3+ and damaging Black's pawn structure is better} 8. O-O Nf6 9. Re1 O-O 10. Bg5 Ne4 11. Bd2 Nxd2 12. Qxd2 Qg6 {Stockfish considers this an inaccuracy [-0.77]. This was a position that was unfamiliar to me and I couldn't find a better attacking idea [-0.77]. d5 is better, opening up the diagonal for the bishop to develop.} 13. a3 Bxc3 14. Qxc3 d6 {A mistake [+1.02]. I hang the pawn on c7, but thought that I would have enough of an aggressive attack with the mate threat with Bh3. This was incorrect.} 15. Qxc7 Bh3 {An inaccuracy [+2.57]. I persisted with the attacking idea, but it doesn't work.} 16. Bf3 Rac8 {I realised that I didn't have many options, so made threats.
Stockfish now believes that I'm losing [+3.56].} 17. Qxb7 Rxc2 {[%c_arrow
f3e4;keyPressed;none;from;f3;opacity;0.8;to;e4;persistent;false,e4c2;keyPressed;none;from;e4;opacity;0.8;to;c2;persistent;false,e4g6;keyPressed;none;from;e4;opacity;0.8;to;g6;persistent;false][%c_highlight
g6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g6;persistent;false,c2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c2;persistent;false]
A serious mistake [+5.71]. I only saw afterwards that White had a fork of my queen and rook.} 18. Rac1 Rd2 19. Rc8 $4 {[%c_arrow
h3c8;keyPressed;none;from;h3;opacity;0.8;to;c8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c8;persistent;false] A devastating blunder [-7.64] with my opponent having lost sight of the diagonal at a distance} 19... Bxc8 {[%c_effect
g8;square;g8;type;Winner,g1;square;g1;type;ResignWhite] White resigns} 0-1