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This is the fourth entry in the “chessnoob Game Review” series where the focus will be on identifying in how a game, whether I win or lose, could have been improved. This gives me an opportunity to reflect more deeply about a game and hopefully, the lessons that I draw for myself will be helpful to my fellow beginner and beginner-intermediate chess players!

Today, I’m going to cover a good game of the Italian. Many beginners start off with the Italian Game and generally, everyone will either play it, or play against frequently. The Italian is a great opening for learning some good principled chess.

In this match, I had the Black pieces, and I played the Two Knights Defense against the Italian (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6). Recently, I’ve tended to bait my opponent to try a Fried Liver Attack as it leads to fun chess! My opponent doesn’t bite and plays (4. d3) and so, a more positional game of the Italian continues!

As typical once out of the beginner stage, both my opponent and I played the opening very accurately – either book, best, or excellent moves. It is in the early middle game that the battle really starts to begin, and where errors take place! This is obvious in the chess.com evaluation bar – completely flat pretty much to move 10, and then it fluctuates in both directions wildly at times.

I knew that my opponent’s bold h-pawn advance on move 10 (10. h4) was bad, but that doesn’t mean that I knew how to exploit it. Overall, my opponent made more mistakes than I did, but I made a few myself as well. I set up a skewer trap for my opponent (bishop against rook and queen on the same diagonal) which was sprung on move 18 (18… Bc7). However, impatience on my part resulted in me missing the opportunity to win material on move 19, and then rattled, I blunder my knight on move 20. In a few moves, I go from a completely winning position [-5] to completely losing [+5]!

However, the position was complicated and tricky, and the fact that Stockfish can find the winning sequence doesn’t mean that I human can! Material was equal but unbalanced. I had an extra rook and pawn while White had a knight and bishop. White was perhaps a little too slow and passive with coordinating their attack, and this allowed me to form a counterattack. The “terminal” blunder [-6.14] by White was thematically the same as their first mistake in the game – boldly pushing forward one of the pawns defending their king (30. f3). This allowed an attack on the opponent’s king with my queen, capturing one of their rooks. Checkmate came a few moves later.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/57279478495

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.09.18"]
[Round "-"]
[White "georgezhou2013"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C55"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Italian-Game-Two-Knights-Modern-Bishops-Opening"]
[UTCDate "2022.09.18"]
[UTCTime "22:37:58"]
[WhiteElo "1373"]
[BlackElo "1386"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "22:37:58"]
[EndDate "2022.09.18"]
[EndTime "23:06:01"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/57279478495"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 {Italian Game: Two Knights Defense [+0.24]} 4. d3 h6 5. O-O Bc5 6. c3 d6 7. b4 Bb6 8. a4 a5 9. b5 Ne7 10. h4 $2 {A mistake [-1.41]. It isn't until move 10 that there is a move that isn't a book move, best, or excellent. Often in Italian Games, both players have very high accuracy in the opening, even at the beginner-intermediate levels.} 10... O-O 11. Re1 $6 {[%c_arrow
b6f2;keyPressed;none;from;b6;opacity;0.8;to;f2;persistent;false,f6g4;keyPressed;none;from;f6;opacity;0.8;to;g4;persistent;false,f2e1;keyPressed;none;from;f2;opacity;0.8;to;e1;persistent;false,f2g1;keyPressed;none;from;f2;opacity;0.8;to;g1;persistent;false,g4f2;keyPressed;none;from;g4;opacity;0.8;to;f2;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f2;persistent;false,g4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g4;persistent;false]
An inaccuracy [-2.08]. The king is now the only defender of the pawn on f2.} 11... Ng4 12. d4 exd4 {A mistake [-0.06] as this capture effectively gives the centre to White} 13. Nxd4 $2 {However, White makes a mistake back [-2.01] and should have captured with the c3 pawn} 13... c5 14. Nf5 $2 Nxf5 $1 15. Qxg4 Nxh4 {A blunder [+0.86]. I played this move too quickly and missed a potential double attack.} (15... Ne3 {[%c_arrow
e3c4;keyPressed;none;from;e3;opacity;0.8;to;c4;persistent;false,c8g4;keyPressed;none;from;c8;opacity;0.8;to;g4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c4;persistent;false,g4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g4;persistent;false]
This move with a discovered attack on the queen, and an attack on the bishop is best [-2.16]}) 16. Qg3 Qf6 17. e5 $2 {[%c_arrow
b6c7;keyPressed;none;from;b6;opacity;0.8;to;c7;persistent;false,c7e5;keyPressed;none;from;c7;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,e5g3;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;g3;persistent;false][%c_highlight
e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false,g3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g3;persistent;false]
A mistake [-1.08] due to the impending skewer if White recaptures with their rook} 17... dxe5 18. Rxe5 $4 {A blunder [-4.91]} 18... Bc7 {[%c_arrow
c7e5;keyPressed;none;from;c7;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,e5g3;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;g3;persistent;false][%c_highlight
g3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g3;persistent;false,e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false]}
19. Bf4 Bxe5 {An inaccuracy due to impatience [-3.63]. It would have been better to \"place pressure on the pinned piece\" with Ng6.} (19... Ng6 {[%c_arrow
g6f4;keyPressed;none;from;g6;opacity;0.8;to;f4;persistent;false,g6e5;keyPressed;none;from;g6;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,c7e5;keyPressed;none;from;c7;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,e5f4;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;f4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f4;persistent;false,e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false]
This move would have allowed winning of material}) 20. Bxe5 Qg6 {A blunder [+1.17] hanging the knight} 21. Qxh4 b6 {A blunder [+4.75] where the best move wasn't easy to see.} (21... Re8 {[%c_arrow
e8e5;keyPressed;none;from;e8;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false,e5e1;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;e1;persistent;false,e1g1;keyPressed;none;from;e1;opacity;0.8;to;g1;persistent;false,e1b1;keyPressed;none;from;e1;opacity;0.8;to;b1;persistent;false][%c_highlight
e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false,e1;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e1;persistent;false]
This was the best move, threatening the bishop, and threatening infiltration into White's back rank which pins the knight to the rook}) 22. Bd5 Ra7 23. Nd2 Rd7 24. c4 Bb7 25. Bxb7 Rxb7 26. Nf3 $4 {A blunder [0.00] but the reason why isn't obvious} 26... Rd7 27. Bg3 f6 28. Qh3 Rfd8 {Stockfish calls this a mistake [+3.78] as it allows queen infiltration to e6 which comes with check} 29. Nh4 $4 {However, White doesn't find the move and Stockfish calls this knight attack on the Black queen a blunder [0.00]} 29... Qe4 30. f3 $4 {White makes a game ending blunder [-5.84] as this allows an absolute fork of the king and rook. Moving
pawns defending the king forward is risky unless there is a very good reason to do so.} 30... Qd4+ $1 {[%c_arrow
d4g1;keyPressed;none;from;d4;opacity;0.8;to;g1;persistent;false,d4a1;keyPressed;none;from;d4;opacity;0.8;to;a1;persistent;false][%c_highlight
a1;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;a1;persistent;false,g1;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;g1;persistent;false]}
31. Kh2 Qxa1 32. Nf5 Rd1 33. Nxh6+ Kf8 34. Bd6+ R1xd6 35. Nf5 Qe5+ 36. Kg1 {A mistake [-M2]} 36... Rd1+ 37. Kf2 R8d2# {[%c_effect
f8;square;f8;type;Winner,f2;square;f2;type;CheckmateWhite]} 0-1