Annotated chess game

Mmm, dmaestro, this reminds me of a game that we once played that got annotated by apastpawn as The Wandering Queen or something of that ilk. I went on to lose. In this type of opening, early queen development is not recommended.

If black can survive what his opponent throws at him then the material gain will count in his favour later on but that is a big if.

Black has some prospects of a pawn storm against the White king...

Black's last is very risky, in view of White's obvious response.

Yes, but what else? White was threatening discoveries by moving Be2, so moves like Nc6 or c6 are answered by Ba6!

Black played his king to d8 to prevent a knight fork on c7 but has forefieted the right to castle. White will exploit this with a pile up as dmaestro described. Black will find it very hard to connect his rooks as a result of the d8 move. To all readers - remember my recent game against anthropologist as black called Chimeria where I got into difficulties when I had to move my king - I ended up in a lost R+P ending. Of course it took a tactical blunder to get there but having to move the king was one of the ingredients in that recipie for disaster.

Black was just about forced to move the king to defend c7 unless he were prepared to retract his previous Q move and drop a pawn as well (10...Qd6 11.Nxe7 Nxe7 12.Nxg5).

... and defending the e7-square as well. This seems to clog Black's K-side, rather. Was there anything against 12...Nc6, which also defended e7? After 12...Nc6 13.Bb5? Nxd4 would be very embarrassing to White!

Black puts his development into reverse - not a good thing. More to the point, especially if you are a pawn up, it may be a good idea to consider even exchanges as that will reduce your opponent's counterplay. Black may also consider taking back with the g8 knight which will help his development.

Black has some good ideas here, though. 14...h5 had in mind to get some attack out of his advanced K-side pawns, but maybe he could have done a bit better by getting in 14...g4! with the idea of 15...Nxd4 if the f3-N moves. As the e7-B is more than adequately protected after 15.Bb2, Black might have tried 15...Nb4, forcing off a pair of minor pieces (15...g4 is no longer so effective as White's last move added protection to the d-pawn).

Cute here would have been 16.Bf5!? Bxf5?? 17.Qe8#. Not sure whether it achieves all that much, though, after 16...Qf7, say.

Pseudo-sacs can be difficult to pick out. In this case the pawn on f6 is defended by a high value unit, the black queen - as dmaestro says in his next note, the black queen and the black king rook are perfectly in line for a skewer should the a1 - h8 diagonal be opened. Unfortunately for black f6 is on that diagonal!

This move could be described as a space clearance - it paves the way for the d4 pawn to advance. I will go into more detail as to how dmaestro can exploit this. The black c6 knight is unfortunately placed for a d5 pawn stab opening up that long diagonal for the skewer which will win at least the exchange.

Black tries to ease the pressure on the e file by kicking the king rook off it, but .....

This is the real mistake. Black has spotted White's nasty threat, but sometimes it is worth looking through the horror just to see if it is as bad as it looks. 17...Qxf6 18.d5 Bc5+! 19.Kh1 Nd4! Now Black has for the moment covered the diagonal and moved the threatened knight out of immediate jeopardy. But the pin on the long diagonal is not to be dismissed lightly: 20.Bb1! Re8! 21.Qd2 Nf5 and if 22.Bxf5 Bxf5 23.Rxe8+ Kxe8 24.Nxd4 Bxd4 25.Bxd4 Qf7, Black has emerged with material level and a more-or-less playable game.

....... because the black queen is en prise to the white knight on h5.

Just as good was the straightforward 18.d5. But White's choice indicates a handy flexibility of mind.

Would exchanging queens or taking the rook helped here?

If ...QxQ, RxQ both the Rook and Knight are attacked. If ...BxR, BxR both Black's knight and Bishop are attacked.

Worth noting that 20... Re8 looks more incisive but fails to 21. Bf6+

the move 20...Re8 failed even more drastically to 21.Qxe8+! Bxe8 22.dxc6 and Black's only half-way reasonable defence seems to be 22...Qe7.

Just about anything wins. I liked 23.Nxd7, myself, and 23.Bh7 looked pretty horrible for Black as well.