It’s October and cities around the world are embracing the autumn looks, trading in bright colors for shades of burnt orange and crimson red. For me, October also brings the start of a new season of the London League. The London Chess League is an annual team competition, split into divisions on a promotion-demotion system. This is the second year in a row I have participated, and my late evening chess matches have become the thing I am looking forward to every time.

So, two weeks ago somewhere in rainy London, I was headed for my first match of the season, playing board 4 out of 8 in my team. I didn’t know what color I would have or anything about my opponent. After participating in many FIDE-rated tournaments, such as World & European Youth Championships, I have grown accustomed to knowing my opponent’s rating before the match.

Anyway, my tube was delayed and arrived 15 minutes late, starting with 60 minutes on the clock, so I quickly developed into a classic French defense setup. Following the typical pawn breakthroughs c5 and d4, I found myself in the following middlegame:

I was mildly discontent with my position as black. My light-squared bishop was very limited, and I had a weakness on e6.

The lichess.org engine evaluates this position as +0.6 for white, suggesting meticulous planning to increase the pressure. The setup for white preferred by Stockfish is highlighted on the board. Even after browsing through the best lines, I am still unclear on precisely how white can prove his advantage. But that’s not exactly what I felt at the board: then, I worried that white might try to break through my kingside, with a well-timed f4-f5 or h4-h5.

Yet, I was happy I had a solid lead on the clock: 20 minutes against 10. There was little chance of flagging, thanks to the 15-second increment. But I know from experience that when you see the seconds scrolling down the digital clock, you feel stressed and are significantly more likely to blunder. So, I was hoping the time pressure would make my opponent take a wrong turn. Plus, I felt I had two easy moves ahead of me: Rb8 and Bd7, simply improving those pieces.

My opponent took me by surprise:

White pushed f4-f5, a fairly aggressive move that threatened to take on g6. A move before (see diagram above), I had thought about white pushing f5. I felt confident responding with e5 so I dismissed that move for white.

But seeing it played on the board forced me to explore the f takes g6 scenario:

The cool thing about black’s e5 is that it doesn’t just attack the knight, but also threatens a fork on e4 next move. Basically, white loses a minor piece one way or another. So instead of salvaging the knight, white captures on g6 and fights to establish compensation for the lost piece through the pressure on the kingside.

At this point, my opponent had used up most of his time calculating and I was feeling uneasy. I grabbed the knight on d4 thinking that from this point, I only need to prove his attack isn’t working and I keep the extra material. My opponent took two pawns for the knight, but I thought that in the event of a queen trade, having an extra minor piece would allow me to capture those pawns back.

After he recaptured on d4 and I retreated the bishop, I realized white had much more dynamic play than I had anticipated:

Black should not forget that the g takes h7 lurking in the background. The pressure of the white heavy pieces on the open files, combined with the strength of the bishop pair, makes up much more than a pawn.

In fact, just one move later, I made a critical mistake, responding to Bh6 with Bg4:

I was now down to 30 seconds, just like my opponent, and I felt that the game was about to be decided momentarily. My go-to next move was taking the rook on f3. But I was missing something huge in this position: that black should absolutely not capture the rook on f3 next move.

With no one left to cover e6, the white queen scoops in to deliver a cute checkmate:

The best move for white after Bg4 is the quiet and efficient h3:

Since Bishop takes f3 leads to checkmate, black has to retreat. White’s pressure simply resumes, the first black piece to fall probably is the rook on f8.

But instead of h3, the last thing that you want to see when you’re down to thirty seconds happened: a queen sacrifice!

My suspicious frown turned into a worried one as I found my opponent’s fantastic checkmate idea:

I started calculating Q takes g3 instead, hoping to take on e2 after white takes on g3 and simplify to an endgame. But white has the powerful Q takes e7, and the threat of Qg7 checkmate is crushing.

The clock was now close to ten seconds, and I reconsidered the b takes e2 continuation. It’s frustrating to see a hanging queen and cannot take it. That’s when I finally found it:

King to f7! In my earlier calculation, I had missed the king’s escape to f7 and then e6 (if it wasn’t for e6, white would have Bg6 checkmate). But king to f7 puts an end to white’s mating net and even though black’s position is completely uncoordinated, my material advantage is just too big. Since I’m a queen up, I can offer back part of my material to cool things down, and still be up afterward. As the thought was forming in my head, my hand quickly pushed the king to f7.

Relief took over my body, and the game didn’t last much longer. Below is the final position:

We shook hands, and I headed home feeling happy. 

When analyzing your own games, it’s important to keep in mind that lines always feel more convincing when they come with an evaluation bar on the side of the board. When one has to play defensively, it is not unlikely for a player to overestimate the attacking prospects or miss an opportunity to switch to offense. Those are things that an engine wouldn’t miss. One exercise that I find useful is playing moves for my opponent, and seeing how the engine refutes the same lines I was worried about in the game. It’s important to translate the eval score to your own understanding of the game, and also know when to cut yourself some slack.

Thanks for making it to the end of the analysis, and let me know in the comments how you deal with your opponents’ blunt attacks.

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