#5, Nxf7, quite often happens to me sometimes when I play a similar opening to you, normally I move the castle to the semi open f file.
#8, d5 was a great move played by you.
I like this game, the minority attack against whites king was a delight to see, it shows us how to play against white when they target blacks f7 pawn.
Good game batgirl.
What about 14.Qxe2 ?
Nice game, Batgirl, and in my favourite opening. 7...Bh4 is not the best, you should play 7...d5 8.exd5 Nd4, threatening Bg4, winning the queen. Then there is an awful lot of theory after that. You can check it out on the fora of the Traxler group I'm part of, if you like. Here's one main line:
Thanks. 5 minute games demand quick decisions which, as often as not, aren't the best.... fortunately, the opponent has an equal amount of time to screw up. My favorite opening is the KG, but I try to entice the Traxler any time I can because, win or lose. I like walking the tightrope like Philippe Petit.
Yeah, as I annotated, I wasn't happy with my Bishop retreat, at least on that diagonal. I must admit that of all White's possibly replies to Bxf2+, Kf1 gives me the most problems, just as White's 5.Bxf7+ give me more problems than Nxf7. But that's chess.
heck when I play Nf3 (KG is my main opening as white) I play the Italian
The King's Gambit is a lot of fun too, but I have a personal connection with the Traxler. On the KG front there is very good news, by the way. GM John Shaw is publishing a mammoth book on it in about a week and a half. Although I imagine you would prefer analysis a century older, I am very excited to see a modern, computer backed perspective on it. Computers have really shown that there is a lot more to these very sharp gambits (KG and Traxler both) than the hypermoderns would have us believe.
I too find 5.Bxf7 the most difficult to face. It took me a long time to even understand why you would have compensation in that line. I'm stil not sure black has enough there. I don't know if 6.Kf1 is really better than 6.Kxf2. Frankly, I think if you're well prepared as black, you have better chances against the 6.Kf1 line, because it's even more complicated. Both should be a draw with correct play, I think.
Well, to be honest, I despise computers in chess. This isn't to say I underestimate their ability to find incredible lines, but more that I bemoan their supersession, even supression, of human thought and endeavor - which may be more limited but somehow more meaningful. Reading lines and lines of moves, after about, say about 15 secs., gets tiresome. Reading ideas and the reasons for those idea, perhaps backed by some lines, can be fascinating. So, while 19th century annotations are without a doubt much weaker and often inaccurate or incomplete, they become more meaningful because they command my attention.
Chess had been said to be a search for truth. With that in mind, computer analysis, supported by Master guidance and evaluation, is probably incomparable. But the truth in chess leaves me in about 5 moves after which it becomes more like either a ballet or a vicious fight for survival and truth is nowhere in sight. So, I leave the truth to the higher eschelon. As John Nunn said: in chess you don't have to be right - just more ight than your opponent.
I understand your feelings, Batgirl, and the danger of mindless analysis is very real - I have certainly fallen prey to that more than once. But computers have also very much deepened our human understanding of the game. Dynamism in chess is now more prevalent than it was during the romantic era, because computers show us more possibilities. The computers show it, but then we start to understand. We can see the connections that a computer cannot. The computer is a tool for our understanding and an invaluable one at that.
But you're right, the risk is very real that you let the computer think for you. Then it does the game no good. But I think it's hard to exaggerate the progress that we have made with the computer in our understanding of dynamism in chess - of the nature of compensation, including very long term. The Traxler is a prime example there. It's with the advent of the computer that we can really understand how deep black's compensation runs there. And I should point out that it's not the computer alone that does that, but the human intuition joins in. We use the computer to check the lines that our intuition suggests. And our intuition improves in the process.
I thought of a nice analogy to illustrate the point (I'm rather enamored by it). Chess is a very big, very dark forest. We've been stumbling around in it for centuries and, although we can't see a thing, over time we've learned somehow to find our way. The computer is a flashlight. We still can't see the whole forest, or even most of it. But where we walk, we stand on much firmer ground. And we get a lot better at finding our way.
A 5/0 game - afterwards I noticed some poor judgments on my part, but this opening often shakes up one's opponent enough that a couple weak moves can sometimes squeak in without too much damage.