Another TL/DR passage from ARC!
Just logged my
best (rated) victory so far. A 1007 resigned against me as an 895. Villain may have been taking me lightly though as his clock was still above 10 minutes and mine was down around 4 by the end. He makes a couple moves that are very hasty (thought not terrible - but probably tempo wasters) and you'll see he makes 2 serious blunders.
I'm aware my 3.c3 is definitely non-standard and sub-optimal. Gonna be honest the only reason I played it was I'm tired of playing the same openings over and over and simply wanted a different flavor. Please don't berate me for it :/
5. Qa4 I know is bad. I know I know bringing my Queen out so early is bad. My non-standard opening has left my Queenside very clogged and unable to develop. The other 2 moves I considered were b3, which allows my DSB to develop (in trade, as it's still protected by Knight) OR 0-0, which I'm not thrilled about seeing his dominating diagonal lanes looming for his Queen and LSB. At this point I'm already kicking myself for the non-standard opening
8. gxf3. I consider capturing with my Queen but he can put his LSB on g4 and make me waste more time moving the Queen.
9. Bxe4. I can take with my pawn but I want to capture with my Bishop here to allow the D-file pawn to advance and give my other Bishop and my Queen some more space.
His 13. Qh4 has me in a bad spot. Luckily I recognize it and do something about it. He's clearly got his eye on capturing the pawn on e4 and capturing my Rook. And obviously I can't advance my f-pawn to protect it so I pull my Knight over. I also notice his DSB will not be threatening this Knight anytime soon, which is nice.
15. Qxb7. I'm really not sure what to play here and he does appear that his plan is to attack my Knight with his DSB. I could have played 0-0 to buy some time, but I don't love the idea of castling this side yet so I want to keep 0-0-0 in play if I can. I don't really have any other backup for my e4 square other than playing Qc2, but that just buries my Queen and I'm not thrilled about it. So I decide to put some offensive pressure on if I can and play Qxb7.
18. Rg1. I don't have a lot of options here and he's about to capture my Knight in trade if he wants it. So I say very clearly you can have my Knight, Bishop, and Rook. I'll take your Bishop and Queen. A +1 trade, and I still retain my Queen. Plays 18 through 21 are a slaughter and he fouls up by wasting a move. Overall he trades 8 for 13. I think he's steaming now because he didn't intend for this and plays 21. Bf3+ almost instantly, which does nothing for him.
From here, there is a lot of jostling, but I'm never threatened. His Rooks are not breaking through my pawn wall anytime soon that's for damn sure. His move 28 discovers an attack on my Queen, which luckily I don't fail to notice. He's also left his Rook vulnerable now but I guess he's getting desperate.
29. Qb8 simply forks both his Rooks. His final move is a clear blunder and my final move is capturing his Rook with my pawn. This move shows up on our game but not on the Archive, since the Resignation message was popping up at the same time I was moving. But he knew I wasn't going to miss this and from here it's just mop-up duty for what should end in a painless CM with plenty of time left.