I have written many articles on the topics of improvement at chess, becoming a better chess player and beating a stronger opponent at chess. Throughout that time I was getting mostly positive responses from readers. Some agreed with the ideas I presented, some were pretty skeptical at first but then tend to share my thoughts, some completely disagreed (not many, but I cannot completely ignore this category as well). Regardless of the category you belong to, you may ask does the methods and ideas recommended throughout this website work at all? Am I going to become a stronger chess player if I follow your guidelines? And you’re right, you should be critical and question the information you’re being exposed to. In today’s article I will show and analyze one of my recent “officially rated” chess games that I played against a National Master (FIDE ~ 2250) and managed to win it.

This game was picked by me for analyzes and publication because it touches many very important aspects of chess: Beating a Stronger Opponent at Chess, Playing Chess in a Lost Position and How to Analyze Chess Games.  In this game I played White. Feel free to browse through the game while reading comments at the same time.

1.d4 I was playing against a higher rated opponent, but even though I think it not a good idea to change openings. You should play the opening you know and know well; regardless of how much better you opponent might know it.

1…Nf6 This moves give Black plenty of flexibility, they can play mostly all of the d4 lines.

2.Nf3 This move was played by me in order to avoid "not-standard" lines and things I don't necessarily want to deal with in this game, like ...e5

3.c4 At this point I thought it's going to be a classical King's Indian game

4…Nbd7 Here it looks like it's not exactly a classical King's Indian, it's an Old Indian. Basically the main idea of the opening is that White has is to form a strong pawn center, Black's idea is to allow it and then try to destroy it.

5.e3 That move is already inaccuracy from White. Better is to play e4 right away occupying the central squares c4, d4, e4 with pawns and creating so called ideal pawn center.

7.Bd3 We achieved a 'closed' King's Indian position, but White is a tempo behind, e3 pawn looks much better on e4

9.h3 Prophylactics move to keep Black's Knight out of g4 so I can place my dark squared Bishop safely on e3.

10.Bg5 The basic idea behind the KI formation for Black is that they castle King's Side, get the f6-knight out of the way and play quick f5 hitting the base e4 pawn.

13.a3 Black moved the knight away and prepare f5 break. I need to look for a counter play on the other since of the board, meaning Queen's side.

13…f5 Black played f5 without any hesitation, meaning that after dxf5 they want to play gxf5. Another idea would be to move d7-knight away (say on through f6 on h2) and take on f5 with the bishop.

14.exf5 Now position looks more promising for Black than for White. Black has two very strong pawns: e5 and d5, which can put pressure on White's position. Black will try to move its King to, say; h1 put a Rook on g1 and threaten many different things with its c8 bishop and the queen. Immediate threat however is e5 forking bishop and the knight.

15.Nh2 Later on in the game I was thinking that Ne1 would be a better choice since it would defend g2.

15…Ndf6 Black does not rush to resolve pressure in the center, leaving himself both options: e4 and f4. He is going to move the f6 knight to h7 and to g4.

16.Qc1 White puts pressure on h6 pawn in order to make Black to commit to one pawn structure. Defending with Kh7 is not a good option due to the pinning of f5 pawn to the King.

18.Nf3 I was also considering Qc2 attacking the h7 knight, but why spend time if black want to move its knight to g5 anyway.

18…Bf6 Black opens up the g-file. Now they sticking to the plan of playing Kh8 followed by Rg8 with a threat Bxh3.

19.Ne4 This move is aimed to blockade the Black's pawn structure and to centralize the knight; At this point exchanging knight for a dark squared bishop isn't an option since that Bishop is a bad piece for Black, while my Knight is pretty good in the center.

21.Qc2 Creating a threat of discovered attack on the h7 knight and connecting the rooks. Another option is to play b4! with a break.

21…Qd7 A strong attacking move that creates multiple threats.

22.Ng1 Stronger move for White would be Rh1!, the move I missed during a game

22…Qd7 Another strong move by Black, it attacks g2 twice and threatens immediate mate, but since g1 is already occupied by my knight I cannot play Rg1. This is why 22.Rh1 was better. After some analyzes I figured that I'm not lost yet, I can still play g3!

24.Nxg5 Exchanging knights is the best possible choice here

24…Qxg5 Now there is a threat of fxg3+. The best defense for White is 25.Be1!. I missed that move and played:

25.Ne2? At this point White is really in trouble.

26.Ng1 My opponent repeated the position, giving me a chance to be smart and play Be1! which takes care of my problems. At that point I already saw that Black can take on h3 with a bishop for free.

29.Kg1 Now the idea for Black to exchange the bishop for knight and take on g3 with a pawn with a check does not work...simply because there is not check.

30.Rh2 At this point I was start getting a hope that I survived the attack and even start planning some counter attacks by myself. For example I have noticed that now my h2 Rook is not badly placed in front of the Black's King. I also noticed that my Queen and light squared Bishop lined up nicely and fully control the b2-h7 diagonal.  Conclusion? Only the Black's queen defends the h6 pawn, If I can distract the Queen from that pawn Black will be in trouble.

30…Ng7? That move is just enough to make my whole idea work. Not only Black has a problem of weak pawn on h6, defended only by the Queen. Now if Queen moves away Rxh6 is just checkmate!

32.Bxf4 Black cannot deal with all the treats without sacrificing the Queen.

33.gxf4 What's the material now? Black got Bishop and a Knight for a Queen and Pawn: meaning that White suddenly came out on top from a losing position.

34…Rg7 Black does not want to take the f5 pawn in exchange on h6. Instead he decided to double the rooks on g-file and creates some threats to White's King.

35.Bg6 I want to lock the g-file, next move would be f4! solidifying my bishop. At the same time Black need to worry about his knight which is being attacked twice now.

36.Rxh6+ At this point Black is simply lost

38.Rxf6+! Exchanging pieces makes a lot of sense since white is up a lot of material and position of Black's King is too exposed

45. Re8 Now I can just ignore the bishop and occupy 8th rank due to a mate threat

46.Bf5 Wins even more material. Black resigned here.

It's a very unique game not only because I won a person rated ~ 2250 fide, but also due to the dramatic change in the middle game, when the position turned from "steadily losing" for White to "being much better". The lesson is simple, no matter how strong your opponent is and no matter how bad your position is, you should keep on resisting and looking for chances for counter attacks. Often it can prove to be successful.

If you have any thoughts and opinions feel free to share them below. If you have some interesting games of your own feel free to share them too and they may be published.