Shock, Shock, Horror and Nelson

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 Opening. Do not ask me how to pronounce that. In fact I will never use those words again. White opens with 1.e3. It looks like the French defense in reverse. Now, I have played Nelson enough that I decided I would not wait for 2.Qh5 to defend against it. I like playing Indian defenses and thought I might could be proactive here. I played 1..Nf6 to attack the h5 square in advance. Only with Nelson can I guess his opening moves.

So, Nelson being Nelson, pulled out the bishop instead to attack f7 with 2.Bc4. Already I feel successful that the queen stayed home and it so happens (determined later) that I lead in evaluation now -0.7. I love the move d5 on defense and so I was able to play that and scare away the bishop too! I led -1.3 after 3.Bd3. 

I should have taken the center with e5 but played the more traditional defense that I am used to with 3..d6. That inaccuracy changed the evaluation to -.6, but I like my position.

Nelson strangely played 4.h4 and the evaluation changed to -1.6. I thought about taking e5 this time but opted to speed development and castle. I played 4..Bd6. Not bad, as the evaluation only dropped to -1.5.

White played 5.b3 next. -1.6. I should know he will fianchetto after this move but have relaxed a bit to focus on my development. I castled kingside, which is the correct play. -1.5.

Nelson moved his bishop back to its starting point with 6.Bf1. I feel really good. He has no pieces off of the first rank and only three random pawns advanced. The evaluation is -1.9.

The correct move here is what I took, e5. -1.7. I  have the center and the development lead and have castled. -1.9.

Bizarrely, white pulled his bishop back out to d3 again. 7.Bd3 costs Nelson an evaluation of -2.7. I made a mistake and advanced 7..g6 which defends against that bishop. -1.2. It does not seem to be a terrible move but I could have kept taking near-central squares with c5.

Nelson moved his king oddly with 8.Kf1. -1.7. I often chalk Nelson's moves like this to random error in his algorithm, so I ignored it. Two moves could have been very good here: e4 or h5. Instead I opted to continue development with Nc6. -1.6 so not bad.

Now I see why Nelson played h4. With 9.h5 he is threatening my king defense with a bishop pointed in that direction. -2.2, though. I take the pawn with my pawn. Not ideal but I think I can manage it with Knight defense of h5. The evaluation moved to -1.0, so this was the beginning of my trouble. I should have played Ng4 which would be defended by a bishop.

I don't know why Nelson still surprises me but he sacked a rook with 10.Rxh5. I expected a bishop move to attack h5. Technically the evaluation is now -2.8, so I am in great shape, but I played into his trap. I took the rook with my knight instead of advancing e4. The evaluation dropped to -2.5. I knew I would lose my knight to white's queen, but it seemed worth it to take the rook. In theory, the evaluation says I am in very good position after only 10 turns.

White takes bishop with 11.Qxe5. -2.6. Now I don't see an obvious play. I brought my queen out to a safe square, much like the McConnell Defense. That was fatal. 11..Qf6 was not going to lose my queen. I had hoped to negotiate a trade, being up in material and development. So the thoughts were not bad. It is what I didn't think that got me. I had one move to prevent checkmate here with 12.Qxh7# and did not notice. I forgot about the bishop hanging about on d3 which makes the check a mate.

Let's review the options I had on this move since I had a great advantage and then lost in one move.

• f5 is the best move. It blocks the white bishop's gaze with defense from my bishop. Evaluation -2.5.
• e4 blocks the bishop with defense from the d5 pawn. A fine move that evaluates to -2.2.
• h6 gives me another chance to play e4 after being taken by the queen. It avoids the check. It evaluates at -.9. I would still be winning.
• Kg7 is equally good. -.9. I am able to escape with my king on the run and a white queen in my backfield.
• Re8 gives me a little operating room to move the king but evaluates at 0.0. A draw can be forced with perpetual queen checks (Qg5+ and Qh6+). A draw would be disappointing the way I started, but it certainly beats the quick loss that I suffered.
• Bf5 is a bad move. It just delays things one move. It evaluates at +7.6.

I don't see any other moves that prevent instant checkmate.

Normally I don't evaluate a game that I lost on the 12th move. In this case, however, I made some nice moves to beat back the attack and build a solid advantage quickly. Then I lost suddenly. I guess the main lesson is that just because I beat back an attack does not mean it isn't coming back at the first opportunity. Against a player like Nelson, you can never relax and expect the best tactical moves. He will sack a rook rather than move a bishop. Obviously I should have seen the impending mate. His strategy (programmed, as it is) is fundamentally to attack at all times. His only two "best" moves were the last two with the queen. Every other move was questionable. 

I think I will continue to play the proactive moves against Nelson when he opens with e3. He is software and I think I can predict his play without any learning on his part. As for why e3 and not the e4 move that is typically played with the Wayward Queen? That open square on e4 was pivotal in the checkmate. I will fill that gap in the future.

Here is the game in full:

1.e3 Nf6 2.Bc4 d5 3.Bd3 e6 4.h4 Bd6 5.b3 O-O 6.Bf1 e5 7.Bd3 g6 8.Kf1 Nc6 9.h5 gxh5 10.Rxh5 Nxh5 11.Qxh5 Qf6 12.Qxh7#  {1-0}

Addendum:

After writing this post above, I played the same game again. This time I won a fairly easy match, going up 3 material points early and then simply trading pieces until I could get to an endgame. I may have cut it a bit too close as I risked a draw at several points. The 3rd and 4th moves by white are a bit different but the intent remains the same. This time I did capture e5 on black's third turn. I should have gone on to take e4 but it worked out either way. The image is after 9.a3.

  

1.e3 Nf6 2.Bc4 d5 3.Be2 e5 4.Nf3 Bd6 5.c4 dxc4 6.O-O O-O 7.Nxe5 Bxe5 8.f4 Bd6 9.a3 b5 10.Nc3 a6 11.Qe1 Re8 12.a4 Bb7 13.axb5 axb5 14.Rxa8 Bxa8 15.Nxb5 Bc6 16.Nc3 Nd5 17.Nxd5 Bxd5 18.Bf3 Bxf3 19.Rxf3 g6 20.Qe2 h5 21.Qxc4 Qd7 22.Rf1 Re6 23.f5 Rf6 24.Kh1 Rxf5 25.e4 Rxf1+ 26.Qxf1 Qe6 27.d3 f5 28.exf5 Qxf5 29.Qxf5 gxf5 30.d4 Nc6 31.Bg5 Ne7 32.Bxe7 Bxe7 33.d5 Bb4 34.Kg1 Kg7 35.g4 fxg4 36.d6 cxd6 37.Kf2 Kg6 38.Kg2 Kg5 39.Kf1 h4 40.Kg2 g3 41.hxg3 hxg3 42.Kxg3 d5 43.Kf3 Kf5 44.Ke3 Ke5 45.Kd3 d4 46.Kc2 Ke4 47.Kb3 d3 48.Kc4 d2 49.Kxb4 d1=Q 50.b3 Qc1 51.Ka4 Kd3 52.Kb5 Qc3 53.b4 Qc2 54.Kb6 Kc4 55.b5 Qg6+ 56.Ka5 Qg5 57.Kb6 Qd8+ 58.Ka6 Qd6+ 59.b6 Qb8 60.b7 Kc5 61.Ka5 Kc6 62.Kb4 Kxb7 63.Ka5 Kc7 64.Ka4 Kc6 65.Ka3 Kc5 66.Ka2 Kc4 67.Ka1 Kc3 68.Ka2 Qb2#  {0-1}