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Look at my rating and you will know that this is not an authoritative annotation on this game. It is simply my thoughts as I progressed through the game. As I happened to lose this game, I humbly submit my blunders for others to learn from. |
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1. e4 c5
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Choosing the Sicilian dragon. |
 
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2. Bc4
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A very anti-sicilian move |
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2... Nc6 3. Nc3 Ne5
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This was a lame move. Obviously, my opponent sees the threat on the bishop. A better move would be e6 blocking the f7 square and setting up a possible d5 pawn thrust. Also, by moving my knight, I not only lost pressure on d4 but also encouraged white to move to d4 putting pressure on my wayward knight. |
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4. Bb3 Nf6
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When I was playing this game I thought this looked okay because it looked similar to the Yugoslav attack with the noteworthy exception that my opponent was not playing the Sicilian dragon. Such Naivete. |
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5. d3
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My opponent is starting to take control of the center. |
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5... e6
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Finally, the move I should have done 2 turns ago. Too late now. |
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6. Bg5 h6
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This is a weeker move that Be7. Correct me if I'm wrong chess experts, but I believe h6 weekens the pawn structure should I decide to castle on kingside while the Be7 provides the same pin-break without troubling the pawns. |
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7. Bh4
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Case in point, the pin is still there despite h6. |
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7... Be7
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This is now the second time I have made a decent move but a turn or two late. You will see how much it will cost me. |
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8. f4
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Now this is where things start to turn bad. It is also, where I started focusing all my energies to get out of this jam. |
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8... Ng6
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Here I thought, Ng6 could lead to chasing away the bishop and provide a good defense should the pawns come forward. I believe a better move would have been to move him back to c3. It would have at least opened up space on the kingside. |
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9. Bg3 d6 10. Qe2 d5
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My bid to start to control the center. |
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11. e5 Nd7 12. Nf3 Nb6 13. a3 d4 14. Ne4 f5
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I feel like this was one of my first decent moves in the game. I made a good step at controlling the center here while the en passant means he gave up a key central square that was really annoying me. The downside was that it weekened my kingside. In retrospect maybe I should have worked on castling. |
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15. exf6 e.p. gxf6 16. Nh4 Nxh4 17. Bxh4 f5
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I loved this move attacking 2 pieces at once. I really thought that at this point I had gotten out of a bad jam. |
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18. Bxe7 Qxe7 19. O-O-O fxe4
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I was so ambitious to take the knight and the lead that I didn't take much time to consider that Bd7 and queen-side castling might have been the safer option as my opponents king was safe from harm. |
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20. Qxe4 a5 21. Rde1 Kd8 22. c4 a4 23. Bd1 h5
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To stop that bishop from tripleteaming the pawn from the other side of the board. |
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24. f5 e5
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Didn't have much of a choice here. I had to keep that pawn alive to blockade the e-file. I assumed he would just trade queens. I suppose I could have checked his king with Qg5 and then tried taking the f4 pawn with mine and the queen would provide cover. Probably would have been the better move. |
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25. Kc2 Nd7
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I've commited myself to that pawn now. |
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26. g4 Nf6 27. Qg2 Rg8 28. h3 Ra6
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I wanted to activate that Rook somehow. Rh2 would have at least protected the pawn and allowed me to release the bishop. I think I rushed through these moves more than I should have. |
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29. g5 b6
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The goal was to fiachetto the bishop to attack the queen. Bad move because it isolated my rook from any action whatsoever. Terrible! |
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