It’s the second mistake that gets you.
This is a game that I played at my local club against a strong opponent. He and I have had some good games in the past, and most of the time I lose. On this night, we had just played a very complicated game which ended in a draw, and now I wanted to go for something completely different. So I played the London System, which I hadn’t played for some time. He played a Dutch Defence, which meant we were in for some interesting chess!
I don’t really know a lot of actual “theory” for the London. It’s a system opening, so the general setup tends to always be the same (with some exceptions). So getting to this position, for me, didn’t require much thought.
I wasn’t really sure about the plan for this position, but it is thematic in the London, in some cases, to expand in the center with e4. The move Bh4 serves to pin the knight to the queen, possibly trading it off later, and allowing the e4 push. After …h6, I went with the trade since …g5 was likely coming.
Note that both sides haven’t castled yet. We joked about this after the game. Both of us were “playing chicken”, holding off to see where the opponent was going to castle first.
After my opponent castled long, I considered castling short. But I was a bit worried about the bishops both pointing at my kingside and the semi-open f-file that black could use to launch an attack.
So I castled long to play it safe. Turns out the engine likes castling short instead, and figures I have good chances. But I’m not sure I would have handled it correctly.
I’m not quite sure what I was expecting from this knight move, other than to put it in a good spot on the board. But I didn’t consider what to do when black captured with …Nxe5. I didn’t really want to trade queens yet, and I figured taking with the pawn and maybe eventually pushing f4 could keep everything solid. But that plan was a bit shaky.
The problem is that I can’t push f4 right away because the g-pawn is hanging, so my e-pawn just ends up being a weakness.
This was simply a dumb mistake. I thought that the rook didn’t have very many squares, and I didn’t see that black could take the pawn.
Unfortunately, I still have this issue where when I get surprised by something I missed, it rattles me and I often struggle for the rest of the game, even if things aren’t so bad. This game was an example of that.
Turns out this was a blunder. Capturing en passant was the right move. I was worried about …Rxd6 hitting my queen and opening up lines for black to attack:
But according to the engine white is fine, and black’s isolated e-pawn is a long-term weakness.
Also fine would have been Rf1, taking the open file. But alas. I felt the need to play defensively, and maybe open up some tactics against the queen on the c-file.
I didn’t want black to have the f-file, so I initiated the rook trade. Not ideal, since I’m down a pawn and when I’m down material I don’t want to simplify too much.
At this point, I’m feeling like the game is not going my way, and I thought I might be able to get the queen in behind and cause a perpetual check.
We maneuvered around, and I managed to win a pawn back! Now the game should just be a draw.
This is where I probably should have blocked with the queen and offered a trade. I’m not quite sure why I didn’t. Maybe I still felt like I had chances somehow? I didn’t like giving up my g-pawn, but then I could have played Qd6+ and picked up a pawn from black with a check.
But instead, I missed one of black’s options…
And now I’ve lost a pawn again!
But this is where the lesson needs to be learned: it’s not the first mistake that gets you. It’s the second one. I felt like losing that pawn was losing the game for me. But it wasn’t. The engine still likes my chances for a draw. But I felt like I was already lost, and stopped being careful.
Now the game is lost. I thought that I could hold off the 4-on-3 since my king was close. But I wasn’t able to. It would have been better to keep the queens on the board, and try to either pick up a pawn, or get a perpetual check and make a draw.
I think I was a bit worried about having the queens on the board. I’m more comfortable with pawn endgames, generally. But in this case, it was simply a losing pawn endgame. Another lesson here is to get more comfortable with queen and pawn endings, because it would have certainly helped in this case.
Key Moments
- On move 19, my plan to centralize the knight was shaky. Although I was correct that just playing an improving move was the way to go, the knight move wasn’t it, because it made my position worse with a pawn weakness.
- My g3 push on move 23 was a totally avoidable mistake.
- After losing the pawn on move 43, I should have remembered: it’s the second mistake that gets you. Keeping calm and defending the endgame was the way to go.
- My game-losing mistake came a couple of moves later when I traded queens on move 45. I should have left the queens on the board. Working on my queen and pawn endings might help me in cases like this.