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Welcome to another episode of 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!

I had the white pieces in this game and used the Smith-Morra Gambit against the Sicilian Defense, and we go down the typical gambit accepted line (1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3). The Sicilian Defense is one of the best responses against (1. e4) by Black and for White, the Smith-Morra Gambit is a way of avoiding some of the complexity and problems from being drawn into the Sicilian. In fact, the Smith-Morra is one of the responses against the Sicilian where White has a clear win advantage against Black in the Lichess database of lower-rated games of blitz and rapid – White (52%) vs Black (45%).

One of themes of this game is that you need to watch your diagonals! On move 14, Black misses the fact that their knight is hanging which is captured on move 15 by my queen (15. Qxh5+) resulting in a devastating change in evaluation according to Stockfish [+9.13].

I’ve recently been playing my games on the Chessnut Air e-board (https://youtu.be/EJYmgEbish0) and the transition to playing in 3D space rather than looking at a 2D board on a computer screen has been a little challenging! One of the big changes is that my vision of diagonals is just worse and on move 22, I thematically blunder my own knight along a diagonal (22. Nc5) which is of course captured by Black! The evaluation is back to [0.00], at least, for one turn. Rattled by the error, I immediately blunder a second time by trading queens (23. Qxc7 Kxc7), giving Black a massive advantage [-4.13].

Luckily for me, I had several structural advantages. Black’s king was stuck in the centre of the board, and thus, at risk of attacks with their defensive pieces pinned to the king. This made it difficult for Black to play, insofar that they needed to play very accurately to maintain the advantage.

In the end, this allowed me to overwhelm my opponent. At one point, I had pinned three of Black’s pieces against their king, resulting in Black making an error in assuming that they had more defensive capability than existed. Secondly, Black’s tunnel vision in trying to get their e-pawn to promote to queen resulted in a seemingly tactically logical decision on move 35 (35… Bxb4) that actually hung a mate in 1. In Black’s attempt to protect the promotion square, they missed the fact that their king was terminally exposed in the middle of the board. Next move (36. f5#) – my pawn advanced with check and checkmate as the net strangled the Black king on the e6 square. GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/61171818207

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.11.02"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "MEHMET25051955"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "B21"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Sicilian-Defense-Smith-Morra-Gambit-Accepted-4.Nxc3-d6-5.Bc4-e6-6.Nf3"]
[UTCDate "2022.11.02"]
[UTCTime "23:50:51"]
[WhiteElo "1338"]
[BlackElo "1289"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "23:50:51"]
[EndDate "2022.11.03"]
[EndTime "00:19:21"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/61171818207"]

1. e4 c5 2. d4 {Sicilian Defense: Smith-Morra Gambit} 2... cxd4 3. c3 {Although Stockfish 15 NNUE @ depth 40 evaluates this as suboptimal [-0.3], the Lichess community database of lower rated games of blitz and rapid demonstrates a win ratio for White (52\%) over Black (45\%) making it one of the best real world responses to the Sicilian Defense.} 3... dxc3 4. Nxc3 d6 5. Bc4 e6 6. Nf3 a6 7. O-O Nc6 8. Bf4 Nf6 9. e5 $6 {Stockfish considers this move an inaccuracy [-1.11] but pragmatically, it might be fine} 9... Nh5 $2 {This is a mistake [+0.81]} ({This was the line I calculated and is the best response by Black. Although it's fine for White, Stockfish surprisingly doesn't seem to think that Black is at a disadvantage despite being behind on development and losing the right to castle.} 9... dxe5 10. Qxd8+ Kxd8 11. Nxe5 Nxe5 12. Bxe5) 10. Bg5 f6 {This is another mistake that weakens Black's pawn structure [+2.49]} 11. exf6 gxf6 12. Be3 d5 13. Bb3 $4 {I miscalculate and thus make a blunder [+0.4]} 13... Qc7 $4 {Black blunders right back [+6.67]} 14. Nd4 $2 {[%c_arrow
d1h5;keyPressed;none;from;d1;opacity;0.8;to;h5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
h5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h5;persistent;false]} 14... Bd7 {Black blunders and hangs their knight [+9.13]} 15. Qxh5+ Kd8 16. Nxc6+ bxc6 17. Qh4 Be7 18. Qh6 e5 19. Na4 $6 d4 20. Qg7 Rf8 21. Bd2 Bf5 22. Nc5 $4 {[%c_arrow
e7c5;keyPressed;none;from;e7;opacity;0.8;to;c5;persistent;false] Playing on the Chessnut Air board and perhaps less attuned to the 3D space, I blunder [0.00] my knight be not seeing the diagonal $1} 22... Bxc5 23. Qxc7+ $4 {Rattled, I chose to trade queens and Stockfish rates this as a blunder [-4.13]} 23... Kxc7 24. Rac1 Bd6 25. f4 $6 Bd3 26. Rf3 e4 27. Rg3 $6 e3 $4 {Black has tunnel vision regarding their passed pawn and blunders, missing the weakness of their King's position [+5.25]} 28. Ba5+ $1 Kd7 29. Rg7+ Be7 30. Bb4 $4 Rae8 31. Ba4 {Stockfish finds a winning defence for Black, thus rating this a \"missed win\" or blunder [-2.96], but this is only the case if Black finds the move Rg8} 31... Be4 32. Rc4 e2 33. Rxd4+ $2 Bd5 $4 {[%c_arrow
a4c6;keyPressed;none;from;a4;opacity;0.8;to;c6;persistent;false,c6d7;keyPressed;none;from;c6;opacity;0.8;to;d7;persistent;false,d4d5;keyPressed;none;from;d4;opacity;0.8;to;d5;persistent;false,d5d7;keyPressed;none;from;d5;opacity;0.8;to;d7;persistent;false,g7e7;keyPressed;none;from;g7;opacity;0.8;to;e7;persistent;false,e7d7;keyPressed;none;from;e7;opacity;0.8;to;d7;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c6;persistent;false,e7;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e7;persistent;false]
A blunder [+4.47] with Black pinning their bishop against their king} 34. Rxd5+ Ke6 $4 {A blunder [+17.4] as the King is dangerously exposed in the centre of the board} 35. Bxc6 Bxb4 $4 36. f5# {[%c_effect
g1;square;g1;type;Winner,e6;square;e6;type;CheckmateBlack]} 1-0