Okay, now I see it. I’m not near a board, but Rg3 seems pretty devastating. If Nxg3, then Bg7+ forces either Kxg7 with the reply Qh6+ leading to mate or Kg8 with Rh8+ leading to the same mate. And if Black doesn’t take the rook, he has no good move to get his neck out of the noose White has constructed.
Like I said, I was in very bad time trouble at that point.
I love this type of trap, but its difficult to get your opponent to fall for it, because under the best of circumstances, he’s trading queens and losing castling privileges.
Do you all ever follow a dubious line, rather then play it safe, cause there’s a lot of room for your opponent to mess up? And also you kind of wonder what your opponent would have done if you had followed the line?
I would often “head for deeper water” when I felt that I was facing an opponent that didn’t like murky positions or if there was potential for gaining some other psychological advantage.
However, it is important to spend time making sure the lines you’re entering are only dubious, not bad. And you need to be confident in your ability to navigate the position, not just count on getting lucky.
As far as wondering what would have happened, I note the above:
I ask because of this game. He correctly moved Be7 on move 8 and instead of moving my knight back and giving him a tempo, I sacced the knight cause Im at least trading a knight for two pawns when my queen moves up. And now he has to decide which pawn to lose. Now, obviously he made some bad choices but that was what I meant when I said there’s a lot of room for him to mess up.
Funny enough against the computer after i sac the knight and move my queen, he immediatly moves his king…so maybe it wasn’t too dubious.
The knight sacrifice isn’t one I would have made. The position opens up, but you really only have the queen in any sort of position to do anything, and if Black realized that the plan giving up the g pawn for an attack through Kd7 followed by connecting the rooks and bringing them to bear on the kingside works just fine in the locked pawn position (plus, the king can end up in a queenside castled position if desired), the game would have been an uphill struggle for white.
While your sac will likely work against someone low rated, it took two bad moves by black to make your sac look good, which, between strong players counts as “luck”.
I hope I’m not coming off as harsh. Playing over you games, it seems that you have a decent grasp of the themes of openings, allowing you to guide the game in directions you want and that’s a solid foundation for improvement.
As you improve, you’ll start thinking in terms of what sort of position you want to end up with and whether you candidate move supports that goal or not. And as you opposition improves, you’ll start to think about what happens if you opponent makes their best possible move, not what you can do if they blunder.
Nope. You’re not harsh at all. And everything you said is true. I just had to…in that situation…see what happens. He can either give up a pawn and castling OR he can protect that pawn but he’s gonna run into trouble.
Funny thing is, I just saw the king can immediatly protect both pawns. I didn’t see it since then cause the computer in that position prefers to move the king to my left, give up a couple of pawns and then chase me to death.
But I appreciate you going over the position…and like I said, you’re right.
Side note: I resigned a game today and was actually proud of myself for doing so. We were even in material. he had three pawns and a bishop, I had a rook and a pawn. But he controlled the center, he had pieces swarming all over me. My position was a mess. Nothing was obviously forced yet and no mate in X going on. But I could tell it was over and sure enough, after the game review…the computer
had him up TWELVE on the eval bar.
Long story short, I was proud i was able to recognize how ridiculous of a position I had got myself into even though material was even. I know it sounds weird, but there you go.
I wish some others would post their games to this thread
Not a great game overall, but I’m pretty pleased with the last handful that turned this game around.
Won on time
The Seventh Seal 
My most recent game had two consecutive “brilliant” rated moves. Pretty sure that’s the only game where I’ve had more than 1. Bishop sacrifice followed by rook sacrifice, followed by queen mate.
Nicely done
This is going to be an interesting position. I’ve never traded a queen for two rooks and a minor piece:
Edit: If that doesnt get me a “Brilliant move” nothing does!..of course I could be missing something.
That is a nice sequence.
Man the chess engine didnt even give a ‘nice move’ on that.
I had a chess game with two brilliant moves! Woooot. I enjoyed letting him execute the Blackburne Schilling gambit, then trying to refute it with a pawn storm. I really messed up the knight pin in the middle of the game but pulled it out. Wooot.
This was my first rated game in a tournament. My opponent had recently won the A prize at the US Open.
No spectacular moves, but I thought I played fairly accurately. (I had the Black pieces.)
Heres that game on Chess.com if you can see it. I think your last move is pretty great
Edit: Also…why were all his pawns on his third rank so long??
Yes, I can see the analysis on Chess.com. Very nice. Thanks for the compliment! I don’t know why my opponent left his pawns on the third rank. He probably underestimated me because I was unrated then.
The following is a three-minute game I played on chess.com a while ago. Its significance is that by allowing me to reach my immediate rating goal, it has made it easier to stay away from chess.com at a time when I really can’t afford to waste a lot of time there. One might argue that posting the game here is no more useful a way to spend my time; true, however…my postings here are not rated, and so I am not at risk of being sucked in; I could easily walk away from this site for as long as I wish without my ego’s suffering all the while.
The light notes are based in part on chess.com’s virtual “coach”'s reactions.
(GM) GasconJR–HalfPawnOdds(a)
(a) I’ll probably change this handle at some point; I prefer my lichess handle but it was not available here. It was intended as a bit of false modesty, the way many golf enthusiasts adopt the handle “threeputt”. In fact, though, Stockfish et al. have shown convincingly that to self-describe as a “half-pawn odds” player is not false modesty, but downright braggadocious verging on megalomania.
(b) Coach-“You overlooked an opportunity to develop a knight off its starting square”, me-“d’oh!”
(c) Coach-“You ignored an opportunity to develop a rook off its starting square”, me-“thanks for giving me credit for seeing it!”
(d) Coach-“You had only one good option there”, me-“…so I guess this wasn’t it?”
(e) Coach-“Good job, defending that pawn”, me- “Thanks!!!”
(f) This is described by Coach not as a mistake, but as a “miss”. This seems to be a modern piece of chess jargon and as such is beyond my ken. White’s reply by the way is also a “miss” and “allows the opponent (i.e., me) to kick a rook”.
(g) Another “Miss”. Coach-“You overlooked an opportunity to kick a rook.”
(h) Four moves, four misses!! But I, at least, seem to have got it out of my system.
(i) Coach-“Amazing! That’s not an easy move to find”, me-“You bet it’s not, dollface. If amazement is what you’re looking for, just stick with me”.
(j) Among Coach’s training suggestions out of this game is “rook accuracy”. Next time I’m in a book store, I’ll look for suitable material. Meantime, though, I’ll be looking to kick them whenever possible.
Nice job on the queen sac to find mate in 2. Especially in a three minute game.
I won’t even play five minute games. All I do is panic and blunder