My favorite game of chess I ever played

[chuckleslovakian]

While cleaning up a bunch of junk from my parents house I found some of my old chess games. I thought it might be fun to share my favorite game. This was the last round of the State Team Championship for the K-9 category. Basically my team needed to win 2 out of 4 games to tie for the championship. I noticed while playing this game that all of my teammates were struggling. I had already won every game I had played this tournament, and I realized I needed one more win...

White-Andy
Black-Chuck

1. e4 e6
2. d4 d5
3. Nd2

It's odd, as black I learned the French Defense and forced myself to try to juxtapose any white opening to the French. While as white my opening strategy was to play an opening I knew my opponents would be unfamiliar with. Sure it doesn't work at the higher levels it was fun at the scholastic level. For a while it was 1. d4 d5 2. e4. But after I played someone who knew what they were doing I changed my opening up to 1.b4. I once opened that against someone and he just started bursting out laughing. After the game he was muttering to himself how the [censored] he got beat by b4.

Anyways, as for this game my opponent chooses the variation I am the least familiar with. But I pretty much play it exactly like I would if he played 3.e5 since that is what I am most familiar with.

3...c5
4. Ngf3 Nc6
5. Bb5 Qb6
6. BxN

A great exchange for me, which is why he probably shouldn't pin my knight anyways. Now I double up my pawns which isn't a bad thing since he can't stop me from exchanging my c5 pawn for his d4 pawn. Not only that but I can now plant my bishop on a6. Usually the white squared bishop is a weakness for black so giving him a diagonal this easily is bad.

6...PxB
7. c3 Ba6

Have fun trying to castle now buddy

8. Qb3 Bd6?

bleh a careless move my me giving him a free tempo

9. e5 Be7
10. QxQ PxQ

At this point he sees his team his tearing up my team and is content playing for a draw

11. b3

I have no clue why he is trying to put his bishop on such terrible diagonals. He is just wasting moves here

11...PxP
12. NxP

More wasting moves. thanks for the free tempo. Not sure why he doesn't take with the pawn.

12...c5
13. N4f3

Now my ugly double pawns have turned into a beautiful pawn formation

13...Nh6

Not sure why but in my original notation sheet I have a question mark my this move. Seems fine to me now. Not sure how else I plan to get the knight out...

14. h3 O-O
15. a3

Dude, stop wasting moves pushing random pawns. It could come back to haunt you...
15...f6
16. Bb2 PxP
17. NxP

17...Bd6?!

At first when I played this move I thought it was a mistake that dropped a pawn. Yeah it does drop a pawn, but the compensation I get for it is huge. His central knight is about to be removed from play for his greed. But at the time when I was playing for a win, "dropping" a pawn really made me nervous.

18. Nd7 Rf4

Probably overextending my rook here, but whatever

19. NxP Rb8
20. g3 Rf7

So yeah I had to move my rook back but whatever

21. Na4


So yeah I am down a pawn now needing a win. But his pieces are terribly uncoordinated compared to mine. Also his king is still in the middle. So I unleash in onslaught

21...R8f8

He could castle queenside anytime, but he refuses to lose any material. Thus he keeps digging his grave deeper and deeper

22. f4 Nf5
23. Rg1 e5
24. PxP BxP
25. g4

For the longest time I tried to figure out how to continue on Bg3+. I even have that move erased on my notation sheet. Until I found the cute correct move.

25...Ne3!!
I know it is a little arrogant to give oneself the !! when annotating ones own game. But this is why this is my favorite game of all time. One exclam for the cleverness, the other because it won the team championship

Now white must choose between me playing Nc2+ or Bh2. But White refuses to give up material.

26. Rc1 Bh2

Now white must choose between losing the rook and mate. But he doesn't see the mate and he hates giving up material...

27. Rh1 Bg3++

After I said good game I believe I received the weakest handshake of life. I heard one of his teammates yell at him in the hallway afterward asking how the [censored] he let himself get mated like that. I smiled.

My team managed to pull out one win on the other boards. Meaning our team had a share of the title while the other team didn't. So this win was 100% necessary to splitting the title with 2 other teams.

But in order to determine who would get the first place trophy we had a blitz off. Luckily our team never took itself seriously and always played blitz over long games when ever we could. We promptly smashed the other 2 teams in dominating fashion. As far as I know the 3 foot tall trophy is still prominent display at the middle school with my name engraved on it.