I polished off the evening of 15th June 2023 with a bottle of cheap and cheerful Chilean Chardonnay, and some online blitz/rapid chess on Gameknot.com.
I played three games, two as black and one as white, playing the French Defence both times as Black, and the Queen's Pawn opening when White.
I lightly edited the video and set it at 2x speed:
Game 1: 1. d3 e6 ... Whatya doin' Boyo?
In the first game, my opponent opened with 1.d3, and I responded with 1.e6 for a French style defence. Next we had 2. e4 d5, 3. Nd2. In the video, I couldn't remember the name that Knight move in a standard French Defence game (1. e4 e6, 2. d4 d5, 3. Nd2...), but it is the Tarrasch variation, or in our game, a Tarrasch style third move but with the Queen's Pawn on d3 instead of d4.
It was a tense game in which I castled queenside hoping to initiate a pawn storm, which did not materialize... Indeed, things were on a knife's edge and I felt my opponent had a positional advantage as well as a big time advantage... until he blundered the Queen, allowing the #pubchessbluffer to turn the tables... and wait either for my boyo to resign or for the clock to run down!
Game: https://gameknot.com/chess.pl?bd=220437&nl=1
Game 2: Blowin' down a house of cards
In the second game I was White and played 1d4. My opponent responded with 1. ...f6
2.c5, e5
So far, so good. I took the e5 pawn, even though I prefer not to engage in exchanges where I swap off a central pawn for a pawn on the c or f file. In this case, it worked like a dream. My opponent got into some serious trouble, neglected to develop and the game was all over in 12 moves, thank you very much!
Game: https://gameknot.com/chess.pl?bd=220490&nl=1
Game 3: French Defence with "Mirror Maróczy" Defence
Okay, I just made up "Mirror Maróczy" (and in the video, I screwed up the master's name). I think of any situation where the Knight can grab a pawn, even when the pawn SEEMS to be defended, and can either come back and complete an exchange or falls in exchange for a Bishop elsewhere, as a type of Maróczy Defence. For a pure Maróczy defence see my blog post: https://easychesstips.com/another-look-at-the-maroczy-defence-pawn-grab
The game started as a standard French Defence, but on the second move my opponent chose to advance the e pawn to e5. I suppose as he was White he could indulge in such luxuries, but I felt it was a mistake. I expected White to respond to my 2. ... d5 with 3. exd6 e.p. , but instead he played 3. Nf3 and the game transposed into a version of the Advanced Variation of the French Defence...
A few moves later I sprang my "Mirror Maróczy" move, helped by my opponent's neglecting to defend the e5 pawn after the first exchange of pawns. In the image, below, you can see that my c6 Knight can take the e5 pawn and in doing so will defend the d2 Bishop.
My opponent's response to my 7th move, Nxe5 was not what I'd expected and led to an enjoyable midgame tussle and exciting endgame until my opponent blundered on the 35th move even though I was the one under severe time pressure.
Game: https://gameknot.com/chess.pl?bd=220496&nl=1
David Hurley
https://easychesstips.com
#PubChessBluffer
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