Bishop's Opening | My subscriber wanted REVENGE! 😜

#chess #bishopsopening #chessbriliancy #rooksacrifice
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My last video was on a game where @Antonioax2 played a Wayward Queen Attack against me, and lost quickly. Immediately afterwards, they requested another game, and I think they were out for revenge and had something to prove!

They played very well in this game despite being rated almost 400 points ELO lower, and I think the Wayward Queen Attack was holding them back!

My opponent had the white pieces, and they lead with the Bishop's Opening. Initially, I thought that they might be angling for another Wayward Queen Attack, but this wasn't the case. The game transposed into an Italian Game: Giuoco Pianissimo line, something that tends to be positional and slow. So, I decided to crack open the centre on move 5 (5... d5), which is a bit inaccurate, but it went my way and this resulted in a nice opening advantage, though we were materially equal.

On move 10, I decided to simplify and trade down, using my opening advantage to damage White's kingside defences (after they had castled short). Although I did retain an advantage moving into the middlegame, Stockfish thought that this approach was inaccurate. This was reflected with the experience that it was more difficult to move forward in the middlegame than I had expected, even though I was ahead throughout.

Move 14 by White (14. Bg5) is a cautionary tale. Firstly, if the bishop can immediately be blocked and counterattacked by pawns, it's probably not the best square for the bishop. Secondly, one of the ideas from the last game - the sunk cost fallacy - was at play here as well. White's best move for their bishop was to actually pull it back and recognise that there was no place for the bishop on the kingside. However, White attempted to keep it in play on that side of the board, and that resulted in the bishop being stuck on the kingside behind a wall of pawns. Even though the bishop hadn't been captured, it had been neutralised as it no longer asserted any influence on the game.

White, however, made good use with their knight. The knight can be a very tricky piece to play against as it dances through and around a crowded board. However, on move 29, I found a move that I'm proud of - a brilliancy! Seeing that White's knight was clearly their MVP, I sacrificed... the rook! White's powerful knight was worth more than my rook (29... Rxd5) and Stockfish agreed! With White's bishop stuck, White's only active pieces was through their rook pair, which can be difficult to use when the board is crowded.

White continued to manoeuvre well, but I managed to defend my king within a pawn bunker, meaning that it was forever safe. However, despite being able to split and disconnect White's rooks, they continued to harass my position with the rooks which had infiltrated. I compound a blunder with a mistake, missing that White had pinned my most important pawn, the f-pawn, which was at the base of my pawn diagonals. Thankfully, White missed that tactic as well! Lucky! 😌

With White having only three minutes left on the board, I finally had a counterattack with a skewer of White's rook to their f4-pawn (39... Be7), and White falls apart under time pressure. They cleanly blunder their rook, and I force a series of trades. The board opens, and with 1:40 left on the clock in an obviously losing endgame position, White resigned. GG!

The big takeaway from this game is that you need to balance aggressive play and defensive play. My opponent played really well in this game, where they otherwise collapsed quickly in the Wayward Queen Attack. There are other aggressive and sound openings to learn, e.g., the Scotch Game and the Vienna Game, and these may be worth trying! You don't always have to default back to the Giuoco Piano lines.

Game: https://www.chess.com/game/live/10421...