Having comfortably won the first of our two games of chess on Wednesday, I went into the second game with far too much complacency, which led to a lackadaisical opening and middle game… Thankfully, the battery in the digital movie camera ran out of juice, but enough of the game is recorded to show you what happens when you play in a slap-dash fashion… especially against a shogi player!
Here are the moves as shown on the video:
1. P-Q4, Kt-QB3
2. P-QB4, P-K4
3. Kt-KB3, P-KB3
4. P-QR3, P-Q3
5. P-K4?, B-KB5
Very bad. In trying to form a wide pawn front, I fatally weakened the centre. P-K3 would have been better…
6. B-K2, P x P
7. Kt x P, B x B
8. Kt x B, Q-K2
9. Kt-QB3, 0-0-0
10. 0-0 Kt-KR3
11. P-KB3 P-KB4
12. Kt-KB4, P x P
13. P x P? P-KKt4
I now have a liability in the middle of the board… Kt x P, then R-K1 may have been better…
14. Kt-Q5, Q-K3
15. B x P, B-Kt2
16. B-KB6?, KR-Kt1
I was worried about the possibility of …B x Kt, but I should have played B x R, then if Black played K x B, I could play Q-Q2. Then if Black played B x Kt, I would play either Q x B, threatening Q x R ch and so giving me time to defend the Pawn on K4.
17. B x B?, R x B
Now I have really lost the plot and am simply responding to Dr M’s moves.
18. P-QKt4??, QR-Kt1
A disastrous move and a feeble attempt to regain initiative.
19. P-Kt3, Kt-KKt5
20. R-R2, Kt x RP…
The battery on my Sanyo digital movie camera died – it was red hot when I checked it, unlike my game, which was stone cold dead.
Even after the first couple of mistakes, with moves 14 and 15, I had regained some initiative and still could have won. But I find chess to be a most mentally exhausting game to play. Very often, at the end of a game, I come away trembling, but not from this duffer’s game…
We meet again tomorrow!
DH