Friday, May 15, 2015

Chess Log: My Group Have Discovered The Queen's Gambit Declined

5-0 blitz, I played Black:

1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5 3. ♘c3 dxc4 4. e3 exd4 5. exd4 ♘f6 6. ♗xc4 a6 7. ♘f3 b5 8. ♗b3 ♗e7 9. O-O ♗b7 10. ♘e5 O-O 11. ♕d3 ♘d5 12. ♖e1 ♘b4 13. ♕f5 ♗c8 14. ♕f3 ♖a7 15. ♘xf7 ♕xd4 16. ♗e3 ♕f6 17. ♕xf6 ♗xf6 18. ♗xa7 ♘8c6 19. ♗c5 ♖xf7 20. ♗xf7 ♔xf7 21. ♖e2 ♗e6 22. a3 ♘d3 23. b4 ♗c4 24. ♖c2 ♗b3 25. ♖d2 ♘xc5 26. bxc5 ♗xc3 27. ♖d3 ♗xa1 28. ♖xb3 ♗d4 29. ♖d3 ♗xc5 30. ♖d7 ♔e6 31. ♖xc7 ♔d6 32. ♖xg7 h5 33. ♖h7 ♗xa3 34. ♖xh5 b4 35. h4 b3 0-1 {White forfeits on time}

Until a few months ago, when I was playing black I was rarely confronted with the Queen's Gambit: 1. d4 d5 2. c4; now it's one of the most popular openings among the group of players I usually play, whose rating is low like mine. It's been very popular among better players for over a century, and now we're getting in on the fun. The standard response is 2. ... e6, but I always play the more aggressive 2. ... e5, getting things nice and stirred up early. 2. ... e5 is rarely seen among good players. Both in Grandmaster play and in the humble games I've played, 3. dxe5 is much more popular than the 3. ♘c3 played by my opponent in this game, and as far as I can see, my 3. ... dxc4 took us out of the book altogether. By 10. ♘e5 at the latest, White had me in a very constricted position and did a good job of maintaining the pressure. (I say "at the latest" because the 10th move was when I first noticed that I was in trouble, and not necessarily when I first was in trouble.) By his 25th move, although he had more material and a better position, White was under serious time pressure. But he rose impressively to the occasion and played his last 10 moves in under 11 seconds, and if I'd been a little more careless he might've beaten me on time: I had a minute on my clock after my 25th move, and under 24 seconds at the end.

[PS, 3. June 2016: I've gone back to accepting the Queen's Gambit. It's almost all of the way "out of the book," but it suits me better.]

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