king's gambit declined falkbeer's counter gambit
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First of all, this games goes out of the falkbeer line on move 3!.
In the Falkbeer White plays 3.exd5 and black replies with the wedge of 3...e4.
In any event 3.fxe5?? should lose the game. In this particular position, 3...Qh4+ wins on the spot, while this check is sometimes playable for white in some other king's gambit lines, in here it's game over. Or should have been. Black seems to not know what to do when the opponent is playing out of book:)
Thing is allowing white to play Bc4 vacating the f1 square makes ...Qh4+ not deadly at all.
Why play the bishop back to 6.e2? makes white's previous opening moves strange. White had a few better moves, and one interesting option: 6.Bb5!?
If white can maintain the center for a while while either forcing black's g4 bishop to exchange itself for the knight or to retreat, he'll have a huge position. 6.Bb5 maintains everything, the active way. Although it's still a very complicated position.
7...Nxe5 would be my move in a game, but some analysis has given me another idea: 7...d3!? and then what for white? 8.cxd3 Nxe5 9.Be2 Nxd3 and this looks good for black. After 7...Nxe5 white should play 8.d3 in my opinion with a position that is more complicated than it looks. I don't think black can claim any advantage there though.
8...d3 would still be my move.
WHY 9.Bh5 ?
I can't figure it out, it doesn't get anything and the discovery will be uncomfortable for black anyway in the next few moves, so the queen will waste a move anyway later. White needs to bring more pieces in. 9.d3 and I like white.
The f3 bishop isn't that important in this position. It's a rather bad piece actually, and after d3, for black to take the bishop is extremely bad. White would have a huge position again.
10.d3 finally. So the weird opening has ended with an interesting position. I don't believe anyone has a real advantage here, but I like black's position better.
12.Bxf6 is ? black actually has a big advantage after that in my opinio.
White can't trade his good bishop away just like that, staying with the bad h5 bishop. The strong e5 knight and the bad white bishop remaining on the board ensures black will have much better chances (Maybe even winning chances. This really looks bad).
Black wasn't threatening anything, so just something like 12.Nd2.
White would love black to play Nxh5. The bad bishop would FINALLY be gone (also Nd2 Nxh5? Bxe7 and black is the one in trouble).
Just 13...0-0 would keep the game one sided with advantage to black. For some reason, 0-0-0 was played (white should just play Nd2 after that. and bring it to c4 this either gets a very good knight, eliminates the strong e5 knight (Which also ensures the h5 bishop remains bad because the e4 pawn can never move), or gets an open file for attack (if black captures).
14.Bg4 Kb8 would be simple and strong. WHY did black remove the blockader into passivity? unknown. Kb8 would and if white tries to 15.Nd2 NOW, black can get 15...h5 and after the bisahop retreats g5, and white is in bad shape.
14...Nd7 is just...weird. big mistake in my opinion.
15...Bg5? brings black's position to the brink of disaster. Has to play ...Kb8, and probably trades on d7. white has a nice position after Nc4 later, but at least it's a game.
17.Rxf7 even though it probably just wins the game on the spot, I refuse to give this an exclam, because it's way too simple: win a pawn, penetrate the 7th rank (which is what rooks want to do anyway), and threaten Bxd7+, Qg4 and Ne5:)
Black seems to not have any reasonable defense.
My problem with the seemingly forced 20...Rxd7 (an obvious recapture) is 21.Bxd7+ Kxd7 22.Qh5 and black has some serious problems in my opinion.
So, what about 20...h5!?
it prevents Qh5 in the end, and there doesn't seem to be a useful discovery. Although white is still doing much better, I think it's the lesser evil.
22.Qf3? relinquishes all hope of being better again. Actually, black's more active king and less holes in the position (thus easier for black to penetrate into white's position) mean that in an endgame, black may have some chances to win. At least he's the only one who can dream of it.
27...g5? what? black creates weaknesses for white to exploit.
27...Ke6 and the passed pawn is blockaded, black is more active and it seems to be more important here than the passed pawn (which black shouldn't have even given white, ...f5 was very weird too, but black is still the one with chances here).
Also, later in the endgame, 34...g4? seems like a horrible move.
Just 34...Rc1. After the c pawn falls, Rc3 would cause another pawn to fall, so it's still an interesting position.
Where is the rest of the game? It's just a pawn up rook endgame, with all pawns on one side of the board. The protected passed pawn means that if rooks are ever exchanged white would win but there doesn't seem to be a way to force that exchange, so white still has a lot of technical work to pull (if this is winnable at all. Although white does seem to be very well placed here).
All in all, nice game:) too bad it left the falkbeer line 1 move after entering it:)