Caramba in the Ruy Lopez ! analysis of an interesting game #1

When was this game ?

• I played this game at the beginning of the afternoon, and I must say that given the circumstance of the game (tournament) and my lack of preparation in the Ruy Lopez, it was a stroke of luck and a victory that I did not wouldn't really have seen it that way!

Why is this interesting ?

- I had an interesting position and I managed to play an offensive game but without taking too many risks, taking advantage of an opponent's blunders.

Let’s analyze!

1.e4 e5 2. Knf3 Knc6 3. Bb5 d6 Steinitz defense, the d6 pawn protects the e5 pawn and frees the c8 bishop which can have a significant radius of action and which will be THE important piece of the game

4. Bxc6+ bxc6 may be the surprising move of the opening. Usually, White's bishop moves a lot and will avoid the exchange to keep control on a diagonal, but the idea here is to inflict double pawns on me and put pressure on the center rather than the sides.
a possible variation being: (5. d4 exd4 6. Knxd4 c5 7. Kne2)
with pawn doubled on c (humanly more difficult than for stockfish)

5. 0-0 knf6 6.Re1 Bg4 white chooses safety by castling and wants to take control of the center, in my opinion, the interesting option for black was to put pressure on an important piece to take control of the center and to develop at the same time this bishop.

7.h3 bh5 the variant bxf3 Qxf3 would not have been interesting, I would have lost the positional quality of the bishop and I would have literally helped the development of the opposing queen

8.c3 Be7 9. g4 ? a very common move in this type of position, the idea of chasing the bishop wastes time to take the center, moreover, there is the weakening of castling because the g and h pawns are weak to play after castling

9...Bg6 10.d3 h5 11.g5 Knd7 ?! clear advantage for black, white's position risks crumbling in the long term, despite everything, the computer does not like Knd7, the idea for me being to put it in c5, but despite all that my idea was lacking of calculation and Knh7 would have been more serious

12.h4 f6 13.gxf6 Knxf6 14. Bg5 Kng4 15. Bxe7 Qxe7 the bishop e7 had less potential than the other, and I wanted to put the knight on a dynamic square

16. Qd2 ?? the move that definitely swung the game in my favor, white's knight f is now my target to definitely crack castling, the opponent is probably trying to defend a little too much rather than finding counter play in the center to equalize the position

16...0-0 I put my strategy in place
17. Kg2 Rf4 prevents Qg5 from existing because a Queen exchange would have been less aesthetic for the game, I imagined and at the same time I feared the sac because I didn't know WHEN to do it

18.Qe2 Raf8? I should have sacrificed more quickly, I would have had the queen + knight + a pawn against a rook + knight and destroyed the castling. stockfish offers 18... Rf3, the rest is easy to understand. my idea was to make an Alekhine gun to be safe
19. Knbd2 d5 20.exd5? error because I lose control of the center and save me from the doubled pawns which were relatively passive until now

20...cxd5 21.Rh1 e4 22. dxe4 dxe4 23. Kg3 Qd6 24. Kh3?! I said to myself, go for it! I put enormous pressure on f, I played dynamically by holding back the sacrifice to be sure that it would work. the castling literally exploded like a champagne cork!

24...Rxf3+ 25. Knxf3 Rxf3?

there was a possible checkmate , I didn't see it: 25...exf3 26.Qe6+ Qxe6 27. Kg1 Knxf2 28. Kg3 Kne4+ 29. Kh2 Qd6+ 30. Kg3 Qxg3 31. Kh1 Knf2#

26. Kg2 Rxf2 27. Qxf2 Knxf2 28. Kxf2 Qd2+ checkmate sequence
...29.Kg3 Qe3+ 30. Kg2 Qf3+ 31. Kh2 Qf2+ 32 Kh3 Bf5# 0-1.

so satisfying that the moves all seemed logical and the checkmate was inevitable. and it is relatively rare to make checkmate with the bishop.

Conclusion

I am however not a connoisseur of the theory of Ruy Lopez, but I just tried to proceed rationally with each move, I thank everyone, I thank my opponent for the game because I NEVER consider superior to any opponent of any level when I win, because if I posted this game, it is for the aesthetics of the game with some explanations. I will also post defeats. If you like this blog, I will do others in the same way on different openings. my goal is not to give a course or a lesson, but only to show a game with educational value by analyzing it like in a book. of course, it's difficult to get away from personal feelings, and I fear that some will contradict me on certain choices or certain explanations, but in this case I will try to improve!

greeting all