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Nelson's Favorite Attacks (Playing White Against Him)

 Nelson, the 1300 bot from chess.com, is known for his aggressive play. I have seen these moves called "advanced tactics" and so forth, but really he just plays an unwisely aggressive game. Accurate play will punish his aggressiveness. As I mentioned in my last blog entry, if you can get past the rapid queen/bishop attacks you can usually beat Nelson with the advantage in material and development that you gain. It's all great in theory that you keep advancing pawns and jumping knights to make him move his queen repeatedly, but it helps to know which attacks he favors in the opening and know the right countermoves. I played several games with Nelson here to illustrate his tendencies. Note that I do not normally play Queen's Pawn and English openings as white, so you can determine his favorite responses to those on your own. I tend to open with the King's pawn or Nf3, but will focus on King's Pawn games in this post.  Here is a King's Pawn game where I playe...
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Shock, Shock, Horror and Nelson

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Those of you who know Nelson, the 1300 bot on chess.com that loves super aggressive queen and bishop moves, may enjoy this. Nelson will get the queen out as soon as possible. If you block that he pulls the bishop out. Usually I beat Nelson after beating back the Wayward Queen attack or McConnell Defense or other highly questionable attacks from white and black positions. Some people find Nelson nearly impossible to beat because you have to know how to play these irregular openings. If you do beat them back, you usually enjoy a significant advantage in material and/or development. Antonio (1500) or Isabel (1600) generally won't play these. Only Nelson is this crazy on a regular basis. But you might run into a 9-year old that thinks these moves are cool, so it is good to practice against Nelson occasionally. I'll do a breakdown on defending his favorite moves in another post. In this game, where I was black, I was tired of the obscure and frankly ridiculous A00 Van't Kruijs O...
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