Originally posted by: CrimsonChaos
Originally posted by: eLiu
Bh3 because I wanted to open the c-file for my rook & not block the other rook. I noticed Bxh7 but I thought I could get around that. Bxh2 is coming? I didn't do it earlier b/c the B wasn't easily defended, I think.
16 ... d4 should get a few ? marks. It was pretty stupid... I'm not sure what I was thinking there because I regretted the move about 30 seconds after clicking "Submit Move". Sorry about that. I think I have compensation for being down 1 pawn... but not down 2 pawns--quite a waste.
-Eric
Edit: How do you feel about the game so far? I felt like I was holding up OK until 16 ... d4. But now I'm quite concerned.
Funny, I thought 16 ... d4 was borderline brilliant. So much that, at the risk of sounding accusatory, I began wondering if I was in fact playing a human -- which is why I asked you to explain your moves.
You see, your (ahem) "stupid" (in your words) d4 move sacrificed a pawn but opened a lot of other opportunities for black. Aside from the "check" from the queen that moved my King to the same column as my Queen, it opened up that same column by sacrificing that pawn, plus it also cleared the 5th row for Queen to move clear across the board to attack my two weak pawns. Oh, and should I add that all my moves were pretty much forced after that point?
And you think it was "pretty stupid".... makes me REALLY wonder. If you're not using a chess engine then I guess take it as a compliment. But it seems awfully curious that you would have such a lethal attack lined up based on that move, meanwhile stating you don't understand why you moved it to begin with.
I mean I didn't think about the d4 move that thoroughly. My thoughts were: "opens the file, opportunity to pin the queen, gets my queen around my N at f6 into the game" which is where the game is headed now.
But then I was like "oh crap, that puts me 2 pawns down, and that b7 pawn is probably toast too..." and I was worried. I don't like being down material because it makes me feel uneasy even if the sac was a good idea. So I probably over-reacted & when you asked about it, I was thinking "oh man, he probably thinks i'm stupid " lol
Also I wasn't really planning on attacking your 2 weak pawns. I didn't think I could really win anything past the h2 pawn. What I was trying to do with Qh5 was eventually put puressure on d4. It's all about d4?
Additionally, at that point I was pretty fixed on playing Bxh2 (as I said above) and I completely missed the Be5 attacking your knight. (i.e. I thought once you played Nd4 I'd have no way of dislodging it in time.) Now I'm seeing an endgame where you have 2 rooks for my queen... we'll see if that happens or not. In retrospect, I guess instead of 16 ... d4? I would give 16 ... d4!? Nonetheless I feel like 16 ... Qa5+ would have been better/less drama. I mean I enver said d4 wasn't interesting, but I did think it was bad for me. Perhaps not.
16 ... d4 pretty much guided every move after that, b/c I was like well, trading down and going to endgame isn't an option so I should just be even more aggressive and either something awesome happens or I go down with a bang. To that end, I was pretty pleased with 21 ... f5 as opposed to Bxh2 since it lets 2 of my pieces go where they want to go.
Heh I hadn't thought of it as your moves being forced. But I was kind of surprised that I've been accurately predicting what you'd do the last few moves. Hum.
Well thanks for the compliment on d4, lol. I'm still not convinced it's "borderline brilliant" as I still like 16 ... Qa5+ better. Rather than brilliant, I would say "amazing luck" b/c if I'd waited much longer I might've changed my mind!
Edit: If it makes you feel better, I learned to play chess (well, past the fundamentals & wiki-ing openings) by playing against ChessMaster10 (I love how you can change the difficulty rating) and asking CM10 to analyze my games for me afterward. So I haven't had that many human opponents besides some bughouse with my friends & goofing around on Yahoo.