Third Game

Move 8 - great move with your knight. My blunder to have the pawn undefended. Your knight is moving to a space where he can't be attacked by any of my pawns in the foreseeable future.

Move 9 - even better, your knight now supported by a pawn. 

Rachel's uncle told me "ask your pieces where they want to be". They want to be somewhere they can't be easily threatened, and where they won't have to retreat. Great spot for your knight - slam in the middle, threatening my territory.

Move 14 - 15 my blunder! I moved my knight to pick up a pawn, but then didn't pick up that your knight was unpinned after you castled. I lose a whole knight! Disaster!

What distracted me was a 'remove the defender' tactic - I saw if I could take out your other knight I could have your bishop for free.

Move 16 - you save your bishop but let me have your knight for free. We've both blundered... and now even!!

Move 19 - there is a really important principle at play here... I want to set it up so the very act of attacking me, puts me in an even stronger position. This is heaps important and one of the reasons why I still have the edge on you. I end up stronger out of this exchange because you've diverted moves into attacking me, and I get a free ride for my rook up to your vulnerable second row, which is always a lovely place for a rook to go since your pawn formations tend to start there.

Most of the time, even if an exchange is for equal materiel on both sides, it leaves one side stronger. e.g. I sacrifice a marginalised piece to take out your powerful piece. In an ideal world, you set it up so that if the other guy attacks you, it only makes your position stronger and his weaker.

Move 19 - your bishop should have moved to D7, which would have protected your pawn and created a real headache for my rook!

Move 24 - remember if you want to pawn rush you have to support your pawns thoroughly. By pushing that single pawn I was able to build myself a cubby hole to hide away in. I would have moved your G and H pawns up instead.

Notice how patient I have to be in pushing my pawns forward. At every step I have to be super careful that they have enough support. It takes ages and ages, and I have to pause to respond to your attacks on the other side of the board where necessary.

And that's about it. Good game, blunders on both sides, but in an endgame a 2-pawn advantage can be enough to force a win.

In some ways winning is mostly about not blundering. i.e. if you put all your effort into not blundering, rather than attacking, then if the other guy blunders you're suddenly ahead! 

I thought this was a really great game! More than any other game, could have gone either way - a really even position until the endgame, and even that was close.