Scandinavian Defense | CHESS MIND GAMES!
#scandinavian #mindgames #chesspsychology
Recently, I played a game against the Qd8-line of the Scandinavian Defense (1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. Nc3 Qd8) where the middle game wasn't what it appeared to be on analysis. It was one of those games where both my opponent and I seemed to have developed an unspoken narrative of where the game was going (I was winning, and eventually inflicted emotional damage subsequent to an audacious gambit of a full piece to damage their defences). However, the cold hard logic of the analytic engine judged us both unfavourably. Effectively, the engine evaluated that my attacking idea was wrong and unwise, and that my opponent had unnecessarily resigned in a defensible position!
I was happy with the game in the opening. My personal feelings are that the Qd8-Scandinavian effectively gifts White an extra step of tempo, so my approach is to develop as quickly as possible with the White pieces, moving the knights and bishops into their usual squares.
By move 12, we were at the end of the opening and the beginning of the middle game, and the position starts to get complicated. Some of the engine recommendations and evaluations are difficult to understand, in fact! For instance, (12... Qd6) was apparently a mistake with (12... Qd7) the optimal move. But following the engine line, it recommends moving the queen to d6 the next move! In essence, the "best" move was in taking to queen moves to the same square!
On move 18, I manage to capitalise on Black's mistake that can be understood according to principles. Their king had stayed in the centre too long and had given up an opportunity the move before to castle queenside to safety. Outside of computer evaluation, (18. Qh5+) forced Black's king to move and thus no longer able to castle. This made the king exposed in centre, and although it took another 14 moves before the end of the game, it was the weakness in the Black king's defences that ultimately gave me the win.
On move 23, I realised that I was low on time - 3 minutes to my opponent's 10 minutes. I couldn't calculate a way forward. So, I decided to weaken further the Black king's already weak defence with a knight sacrificial gambit (23. Nxf6)! The curious thing is that Stockfish reckons that I had a winning position before [+4.8] but the complicated nature of it meant that I couldn't see the move. My gambit was rated a blunder, with the advantage slightly moving to Black [-0.7].
However, it worked in practice, even if Stockfish disapproved. I now had a crack to which to apply pressure, and with each check brings the feeling of psychological momentum - it felt like winning for me and I imagine that it felt like losing for my opponent. And the thing with checks - they are often easy to find, allowing me to lessen my time disadvantage!
And the final move of the game (31. Rc4) was rated a "mistake" by the engine [from +6.8 to +1.2], but triggered Black to resign with three-and-a-half minutes left on the clock, so was it a mistake? Black's queen appears trapped, but Black might have missed Qf3 as an escape square as my pawn on g2 is pinned to the king. However, in the context the illusion of the winning position by me (remember, only [+1.2]!), the multiple previous checks, the spectre of losing the queen caused emotional damage! GG!
The big takeaway from this game is not underestimate the psychological impacts of moves and positions. Regardless of the engine evaluation, you win if your opponent convinces themselves that they've lost!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/83553322943
