An Interesting Alekhine

Although I haven’t posted in a while, I’ve been playing more chess since the end of last year’s chess season. Since starting college at Olin College of Engineering, I’ve studied the Alekhine defense and practiced a few endgames. This game I’m sharing with you is from an online tournament at chess.com.

Blue Christmas: Round 1

In the Alekhine defense, black (me, in this position) lets white control extra space in the center of the board with plans to counterattack later. Although it tends to give white a slight advantage, even in perfect play, it creates largely imbalanced positions, and therefore, more exciting games. Here, white’s trying to maintain a strong center with its d4 and c4 pawns, while black’s goal is to undermine the center with moves like Bf6, which put pressure on the d4 square.

Although white had an advantage, now the position is equal because I traded off my black knight for white’s light-squared bishop. Now, white has a space advantage but my rook on e8 controls a really nice open file.

Now, everything except white’s bishop is developed, and the position is about equal. The knight on h5 can exchange itself for the f6 bishop to play for a slight edge in the endgame.

Now, due to a quick tactic from 24. Bxd4, I am up a pawn. However, the mate threat (see diagram above) on g7 is pretty tricky. The correct response is Qe5+! following up with f5 to protect the square. My move, g6, threw away my advantage and even made it possible for white to win.

The move 27 … g6 allowed white’s knight and queen to push my king around and start an attack. At this double check (The knight and queen are giving check, so I can’t take the queen), I made the blunder of playing Kh6. Putting my king on the side of the board gave my opponent a quick tactic that led to checkmate very soon.

Overall, I learned to be careful about underestimating the attacking power of the queen and the knight, especially in this open position. I may have underestimated the attacking potential because I was thinking of my game against Big Chungus, where I failed an attack with a queen, rook, and knight. However, in the endgame, it’s fairly easy to take advantage of an open king, especially if there are no pieces (other than pawns) defending it.