Great Game Saturday Night!

Saturday night my brother had a "games-night" get together. I went, along with my wife, and we had a pretty good time. We spent most of the evening socializing (with no games being played) but I noticed he had a chess board and asked if anyone wanted to play.

My brother volunteered his friend Dale (very intelligent and into strategy games), so we broke it out and played. My brother was quite adamant that I was going to be crushed as Dale has been playing for a while recreationally.

I gotta say this was one of the most enjoyable games that I've played. We seemed to be both around the same skill level. I've noticed when playing online that my opponents have been either playing very unsound moves (eg the queen-rush) or been incredibly strong, with no in-between.

I played as black. Dale opened up with e4 and I replied with e3 (somewhat passive but retains pawn integrity while allowing for development and more positional play). My thoughts were to try and get him to over extend his pawn center and to maneuver around and counterattack. He then moved Nf3 and I replied with Nf6. He pushed his pawn (extending further) and I had to carefully dance around a bit, loosing tempo. Some of you may recognise this as being similar to Alekhine's Defence (modern variation).

I then set up a queenside fianchetto - putting pressure on the kingside. I was able to spear his rook early in the game. He worked on occupying the centre, I worked on keeping a tight pawn structure and setting up around the flanks, particularly on the queenside. I managed to force his king to move with one of my knights, which I then lost shortly after, but he lost his castling rights and his only choice was to move the king to the kingside for protection if he didn't want to block his remaining rook. I castled over on the queenside as his pieces were gearing up for a kingside attack. I know that castling on the opposite side into a fianchetto is not preferred, but I felt that I would gain some time as he'd have to redirect his pieces.

My brother and one of his friends checked in and exclaimed that Dale was winning as he occupied the centre. Dale then explained to them how it's more about controlling the center and piece mobility/coordination.

Things then explosively opened up in the center. He got his queen into the action busting up my pawn formation in my fianchetto. By the end of that battle he had taken both my knights and 5 pawns, but at the cost of his bishops and a pawn. I had to bring my king up to the center of the second rank (blocking/protected by one of his pawns). I managed to chase his queen back with my queen and a bishop and then trapped her pinning against the king, forcing him to exchange queens (mine protected by a rook). Material was fairly even - I had taken a couple pawns, both bishops, a rook, and queen; he had taken 5 pawns, both knights, and my queen. Technically I was two pawns ahead in 'material count'.

We maneuvered a little bit more - I started bringing the king into the attack, and then, of all things... I managed for fork his two knights with my king! For some reason I find that the closer to the endgame I get, the better I play. At that point is was getting late and Dale offered his resignation as he would lose a knight and his remaining rook never got a chance to get out as it was being used for defense. I told him we could just call it a draw as it could have gone either way.

Looking back in retrospect - we should have recorded our moves so I could throw it into a chess engine to see what it suggests. I'm just using a freeware chess game (Mayura) that will show suggested moves.

Anyway, like I said it was a very enjoyable and creative game. I'm looking forward to the next one!