2017 Land of the Sky XXX Round 1 Peter Michelman, 2072 - Anton Taylor, 1916 English: Anglo-Dutch (A10)

2017 Land of the Sky XXX Round 1 
Peter Michelman, 2072 - Anton Taylor, 1916 
English: Anglo-Dutch (A10)

1. c4 f5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 e6 4. Nc3 d5 5. d4 Bb4 Up until this Bishop move things have been quite normal and numerous games between masters exist in the position. simply c6 or Be7 are by far more common developing moves. The move c6 is preferred. I take another path in this game that quickly goes wrong. 6. Nf3 O-O 7. O-O c5??

Games by masters have continued c6. This move loses on the spot as the following moves will show. 8. cxd5 Bxc3 9. bxc3 exd5 10. Ba3 I debated on what to play here. My first choice was Ne4. I missed that the knight also hits the pawn on c3 as well as defending c5. So instead I play the grossly losing b6 with an even worse idea following. 10. ... b6 11. dxc5 Qe7 12. Ng5 I wasn't clear on why White would choose this move. Nd4 seemed better. 12. ... Bb7?? This loses immediately but the only real alternative (Rd8) is positionally lost. There are too many tactics in the air for Black to hold together or create useful complications. 13. c6! 1-0

This was a really embarrassing loss. My opponent is nowhere near master strength but that is the smallest problem I had with losing this game. This was played on board two of the Under 2200 section. The organizers had set up DGT electronic boards and were broadcasting the top games in each section live over the internet. So, the result of this game is that my first online featured live game was falling into a miniature by making an obviously bad choice.

My conclusion from this game is two-fold

First, I need to stop playing blitz. Or at least not with a view to actually win. If I'm in attacking mode I play in this way: Cavalier, unsound, and completely recoverable in a five minute game. this creates problems for online opponents and they fold under the pressure. When someone has hours to work on problems such moves are losing.

Second, I must develop a systematic method of creating and maintaining an opening repertoire. up until now I have depended on my memory and intuition to determine most of my opening choices, This has worked out in most games but in the special cases that crop up now and then where the wrong move is thematic and the right move is counter-intuitive I go wrong. I was recently reminded of Samuel Reshevsky who would study openings tirelessly and couldn't remember anything he studied. His poor memory is legendary.

GM Samuel Reshevsky

My memory is not so poor. However, my intuition is not developed enough in the openings I'm playing to not prepare a repertoire. But how to do it systematically? I'm not skilled in the use of custom chess databases. More research is needed.