Hi. I'm Empty_Chess on Lichess.org. It's an open-source, ad-free, free-to-play chess website with many thousands of active games occurring at all times of day!

My current elo rating is anywhere from 1550 ~ 1650 bullet, 1650 ~ 1750 blitz and 1750 ~ 1850 standard (I obviously do better with more time to think on my moves). These are estimated from thousands of past games, played under the account name SilentWitness on Free Internet Chess Server (FICS).

Purpose of these Posts:

The goal is to improve the quality of my chess by recording my games here, on the Steem block-chain, for the purpose of future study. I also plan to do some openings study on the side, but I don't have clear goals on how or when I'll achieve this.

I feel that my rating would vastly improve by sticking to just a few openings for white and black, focusing on developing a deep understanding of how to play them and what type of strategies to aim for when using them. Alas, to date, I have never taken it seriously enough to enforce such discipline (no pun intended) on my chess play.

Whether or not I'll change my approach in regards to opening play... time will tell.

I could also improve by studying endgames or middle-game (tactics or positional) puzzles, but I lean away from these approaches mostly because I'm here more for the joy of playing the game than I am for trying to master it. That said, as I previously stated, I DO want to improve my chess, which is exactly why you're reading these words right now!

Without further ado...

Game Can Be Viewed at the Following Lichess.org Link:

https://lichess.org/o4dO5bfs/white#0

Raw PGN:

d4 g6 { A40 Modern Defense } 2. c4 b6 3. e4 Bb7 4. Nc3 Bg7 5. Be3 e6 6. Bd3 d6 7. Nge2 Nd7 8. O-O Ne7 9. Qd2 a6 10. Bh6 O-O 11. d5 e5 12. Bxg7 Kxg7 13. f4 Nc5 14. b3 f5 15. Rf3 fxe4 16. Nxe4 Nxd3 17. Qxd3 Nf5 18. fxe5 dxe5 19. Raf1 c6 20. Ng5 Bc8 21. Rh3 Nh6 22. Rxf8 Qxf8 23. Ne6+ Bxe6 24. dxe6 Qe7 25. Qe3 Ng4 26. Qxb6 Rd8 27. Nc3 Rd6 28. Rg3 h5 29. h3 Nf6 30. Qxa6 Rxe6 31. Qb6 e4 32. Qd4 c5 33. Qe3 Qc7 34. Qg5 Nh7 35. Qe3 Qe5 36. Nd5 Qa1+ 37. Kh2 Qe5 38. Kg1 h4 39. Rg4 g5 40. Nf4 Qa1+ 41. Kh2 Re8 42. Nd5 Qe5+ 43. Kg1 Qd4 44. Kf2 Rf8+ 45. Kg1 Ra8 46. Qxd4+ cxd4 47. Rxe4 Rxa2 48. Rxd4 Rb2 49. b4 Rc2 50. c5 Rc1+ 51. Kf2 Kh6 52. Rd3 { White wins on time. } 1-0

Alternative Online PGN Viewers:

Copy and paste the "Raw PGN" (pasted above), starting from 1.... to the last move data, and paste into "Load PGN" (chess.com) or "Enter PGN" (beta.chesstempo.com) box(es). Hit enter. Enjoy :)

https://www.chess.com/analysis-board-editor (with chess-engine analysis by Stockfish 9)
https://beta.chesstempo.com/pgn-viewer/ (optional analysis by Komodo chess-engine)

Notes About the Game:

This was a long game with some really sloppy play.

I had a 2.5 pawn lead according to SF by move 17, where I missed my chance to over-defend my f-pawn and, more importantly, align a battery of rooks on my opponent's rook that was defended by his queen and king (maintaining a good lead). I instead relieved some tension in the position (and also losing the initiative) with a pawn captures pawn.

I had another chance to capitalize on him failing to connect his rooks on move 20, where I not only failed to put more pressure on his knight (with the unconnected rook defending it) with my own knight, but placed that knight in a spot that it was outright hanging for immediate capture! A pathetic move. By far, the biggest of my blunders in this game.

I proceeded to leave it hanging to a queen capture on move 21. Luckily, my opponent kept missing the obvious capture as well :)

Another blunder came at move 23, in which I used that same knight to deliver a check, which should have lead to my opponent's rook gaining an open file with a queen check and opening up dangerous lines on my king with rook and queen play. Fortunately, he missed the opportunity to cash-in on my blunder again.

I had the chance to capitalize on an over-working knight on move 40 by setting up a triple attack on black's double defended passed-e-pawn (on e4) with a simple knight move (nc3), taking advantage of the fact that his king and queen would be checked by rxg5 (winning a pawn and queen for a rook) IF his knight were moved from defending that pawn to protect the e-pawn.

With some time-pressure I made the last big blunder on move 44, where I refused to capture a queen that skewered my own queen to my king, opting to move my king up to protect it again (it was already protected once by my knight). This set up a rook check, winning the open file and starting a sequence of rook and queen maneuvers that could have broken the game open for black, if not lead to an outright checkmate in some short amount of forced moves. But, wouldn't you guess it, my opponent didn't see the lines and not only did he not maintain the lead, I took it with authority by capitalizing on a dubious rook move that allowed me two protected-passed pawns.

I had a 5 pawn lead by the time that black's clock hit 0:00 on move 52. A tale of the slightly less worse taking the game.

Feel Free to Constructively Criticize:

I'm not without ego, but I'm also aware that my chess has a LOT of room for improvement. Because I want to get better, I encourage your criticisms and suggestions.

I'd also be appreciative if you'd share your own chess (raw) PGNs in the comment section to this, and future, posts, along with any relevant information (such as your chess rating, account name and where I can play you).