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This was a game mostly by accident! I was on the chess.com website working on the blogging platform when I accidently hit the button for a new 10 min rapid game on the home page! Not wanting to abort and be annoying, I decided to play. Normally, I play 30 min rapid, but 10 min games can be exciting as well!

I played the Vienna, my opponent responded with an early bishop move, the Anderssen Defense, and in this situation, of course, I respond with the hilarious Giraffe Attack (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Qg4)! Nobody really expects the mighty Giraffe Attack in the Vienna Game!

My opponent with the Black pieces spent 13 seconds thinking, and responded with the common, but inaccurate (3… g6). This weakens the dark squares on the king-side and instantly makes the Giraffe Attack worthwhile [+0.5]!

I place the queen on the Giraffe Attack “parking” square (4. g3) and the game continues! The looming pressure of the angry Giraffe Queen often induces errors, and we had our first big harvest on move 7 with Black pushing their h-pawn (7… h6), a blunder [+3]. Admittedly, I don’t capitalise on this immediately, but on move 10, Black makes a game changing blunder [+5] but refusing to initiate a trade of queens and hanging their knight to protect the c7 square from my knight on d5, one of the tactical ideas of the Vienna.

So, I oblige the forced trade of queens, with Black’s king losing the right to castle, and capture the hanging knight for free the next turn (11. Qxd8+ Kxd8 12. Nxb4). Black’s kingside defence is in a shambles and I capture all the kingside pawns for free in the subsequent turns.

Up to move 24, I thought through each move carefully and had traded down Black so that they only had one remaining rook, while I had a rook, knight, bishop, and a passed pawn on the h-file. On move 24, I had 49 seconds remaining on my clock against my opponent’s 5 minutes, but I was confident that I could safely blitz out the remaining moves without danger as the endgame strategy was clear:

• push the passed h-pawn to promotion, and likely either trade the pawn for Black’s remaining rook, or the rook will be stuck on guard duty to prevent promotion
• block/lock off the advance of Black’s remaining pawns on the queenside with my own pawns
• with my pawn majority, promote one of my remaining pawns to a queen and then quickly checkmate Black’s king using a pattern that requires minimal calculation time.

And it worked! I managed to play the next twenty moves in 26 seconds, with no move being an error or a blunder. I did miss a checkmate on move 39 as I was playing quickly according to my strategy rather than looking specifically for mates. Nonetheless, on move 44, I delivered a beautiful mate in the centre of the board with around 13 seconds left on my clock. GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/67587631803

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2023.01.16"]
[Round "-"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "tejaswiverma"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C25"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Vienna-Game-Anderssen-Defense-Giraffe-Attack"]
[UTCDate "2023.01.16"]
[UTCTime "05:55:09"]
[WhiteElo "1395"]
[BlackElo "1346"]
[TimeControl "600"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]
[StartTime "05:55:09"]
[EndDate "2023.01.16"]
[EndTime "06:12:13"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/live/67587631803"]
[WhiteUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/3711094.82046355.78x78o.ebd68214df6f@3x.jpg"]
[WhiteCountry "17"]
[WhiteTitle ""]
[BlackUrl "https://images.chesscomfiles.com/uploads/v1/user/65253488.759e1ae4.78x78o.6832bb4402bd@3x.png"]
[BlackCountry "69"]
[BlackTitle ""]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Qg4 {Nobody expects the mighty Giraffe Attack in the
Vienna Game $1} 3... g6 $2 {[%c_effect g6;square;g6;type;Mistake;persistent;true] An
inaccuracy [+0.52] that already makes the Giraffe Attack worthwhile $1} 4. Qg3 d6
5. Bc4 Nc6 6. Nf3 Nb4 7. Bb3 h6 $4 {[%c_effect
h6;square;h6;type;Blunder;persistent;true] Before the mightly Viennese giraffe,
players with the black pieces often blunder in fear $1 [+3]} 8. d3 $2 $9 {[%c_effect
d3;square;d3;type;Mistake;persistent;true][%c_arrow
f3e5;keyPressed;none;from;f3;opacity;0.8;to;e5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false] Admittedly, not the
most accurate move [+0.2]} ({If Black plays g6 against the rampaging giraffe, we
can take advantage of the weakened dark squares...} 8. Nxe5 dxe5 9. Qxe5+
{[%c_arrow
e5e8;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;e8;persistent;false,e5h8;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;h8;persistent;false,e5c5;keyPressed;none;from;e5;opacity;0.8;to;c5;persistent;false][%c_highlight
h8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h8;persistent;false,e8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e8;persistent;false,c5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c5;persistent;false]})
8... Nf6 9. Nd5 $2 {[%c_effect d5;square;d5;type;Mistake;persistent;true][%c_arrow
g3h4;keyPressed;none;from;g3;opacity;0.8;to;h4;persistent;false][%c_highlight
h4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;h4;persistent;false] An aggressive forward
push that Stockfish calls a mistake [-0.8]} 9... Nh5 10. Qh4 Bb6 $4 {[%c_effect
b6;square;b6;type;Blunder;persistent;true] Black unfortunately, makes a game
changing blunder [+5.1] hanging their knight} 11. Qxd8+ $1 {[%c_effect
d8;square;d8;type;GreatFind;persistent;true]} 11... Kxd8 12. Nxb4 Bg4 $6
{[%c_effect g4;square;g4;type;Inaccuracy;persistent;true] Black lashing out, but
there is no threat here [+6.4]} 13. Bxf7 c6 14. c3 {[%c_arrow
a7a5;keyPressed;none;from;a7;opacity;0.8;to;a5;persistent;false,a5b4;keyPressed;none;from;a5;opacity;0.8;to;b4;persistent;false,b4c2;keyPressed;none;from;b4;opacity;0.8;to;c2;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c2;persistent;false] The move was to give
my knight on b4 an escape square against a5} 14... Rf8 15. Bxg6 Bxf3 16. gxf3
Ng7 17. Bxh6 Rxf3 18. Bxg7 Bxf2+ 19. Ke2 Kc7 20. Raf1 {[%c_arrow
e2f3;keyPressed;none;from;e2;opacity;0.8;to;f3;persistent;false][%c_highlight
f3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;f3;persistent;false] So many good moves $1 I
could have captured the rook which was hanging [+17], but this developing move
is fine as well [+12]} 20... Rf4 21. Rxf2 Rg8 22. Rxf4 exf4 23. Kf3 Rxg7 24. Bf5
{At this point, I had 49 seconds remaining on the clock vs my opponent's 5
minutes (of a 10 minute game). However, I was confident that being up massive
amounts of material, I could blitz out moves relatively safely and still win...}
24... a5 25. Nc2 Rg8 26. Nd4 Kb6 27. Ne6 Ra8 28. h4 {I was confident that Black
couldn't break through on the queenside so an easy strategy that didn't require
time to think was to push my passed h-pawn} 28... a4 29. a3 d5 30. e5 Ra5 31. d4
c5 32. dxc5+ Kc6 33. Nd4+ Kxc5 {[%c_highlight
b2;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;b2;persistent;false,c3;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c3;persistent;false,e5;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;e5;persistent;false,d4;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;d4;persistent;false]
And the queenside is \"locked\" preventing any timely Black advance on that
side} 34. h5 Kc4 35. h6 Ra8 36. h7 Kc5 37. h8=Q Rxh8 38. Rxh8 {Black's last
piece has been liquidated - I have 19 seconds left on the clock} 38... Kc4 $4
{[%c_effect c4;square;c4;type;Blunder;persistent;true][%c_arrow
c5b6;keyPressed;none;from;c5;opacity;0.8;to;b6;persistent;false][%c_highlight
b6;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;b6;persistent;false] This actually
blunders a mate in 1} 39. e6 $2 $9 {[%c_effect
e6;square;e6;type;Mistake;persistent;true][%c_arrow
h8c8;keyPressed;none;from;h8;opacity;0.8;to;c8;persistent;false][%c_highlight
c8;keyPressed;none;opacity;0.8;square;c8;persistent;false] This is a missed win
as Rc8 is checkmate. However, in the time scramble, my plan was to simply push
the e-pawn to promote.} 39... Kc5 40. e7 Kd6 41. e8=Q Kc5 42. Qc8+ Kd6 43. Rh6+
Ke5 44. Qe6# {[%c_effect
f3;square;f3;type;Winner,e5;square;e5;type;CheckmateBlack] A lovely checkmate in
the middle of the board with 13.8 seconds left on the clock $1} 1-0