T53 Round 1 U1600

The next Team League season started last week and I didn't start that well ( again :).

I can't complain about the ( minimal ) preparation and opening as I had exactly what I expected, trawling out my old Philidor against the expected e4.

Overall, I certainly felt that I gained some sort of equality here on move 9.

9. h3 ..Black to decide

A decision to exchange, rather than retreat the Bishop, and my placement of the Knight on e4 ( which I thought was a great square, but my opponent described it as inconvenient, but not that intrusive ! ), left me a touch worse off.

However, a disastrous mis-calculation after 12. Bf4 led me to play g5 ??

12. Bf4

It seemed like a good move at the time ( although now it seems evident that 0-0 or Qe7 are better ) , I went through the possibilities of various exchanges and concluded that g4 was an OK move.

But I didn't go the extra ply and, although I certainly did see Nxe4, I missed the very important fact that  of the threatened Nf6 gave a very nasty check !

Of course, after the initial exchanges, I did see that I was really wrong, but elected for a defensive Qe7, rather than exchanging Queens, or even Be7 to defend f6. The latter moves may have left me down material, but certainly not dead and buried !

As you can guess, I collapsed very quickly as there was no decent defence.

It is some vague form of comfort that Boris Gelfand also missed seeing the extra move(s) and lasted the same number of moves as me ( 17 ) against Anand before he resigned and left the World Championship  equal again, and with very interesting times ahead in the next 4 games.

Not that I am in any way comparing games, but it is comforting to realise that even Grandmasters overlook moves.