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This recent game was my very first game with my granddaughter Talia. I had never seen her play, but my son John has taught her and he can now beat me on a regular basis. Thus, I had no idea how good she might be. I had just given an Internet class on chess strategy to my grandchildren as part of home school during the coronavirus pandemic quarantine. In it I taught to move out the center pawns if possible and some on the queen side, but to make a castle with those on the king side and protect him with those pawns.
She then joined chess.com with her older brother Reed, who suggested an altered setup to make it fair. So she challenged me to a game with the set up shown, where she gets two queens and I get none. I had often played my children by taking pieces off my side (see Handicap for Equality), usually queen and queen rook, but I have never played a game in my life against anyone beginning with two queens! It turned out to be an excellent game which really made me sweat, so I share it with you in case it can be instructive.
| 1. e2-e4, e7-e5. | We begin with standard moves. |
| 2. d2-d4, e5xd4. | Does she know the Center Game? A bold move! I have to take that pawn or I lose the center. |
| 3. c2-c4, Nb8-c6. | She is doing what I taught in my class, and it looks scary! I don't know if she knows of "en passant", which would turn it into a Danish Gambit, but that would be too dangerous against that extra queen. I decided to protect my pawn while I could. |
| 4. a2-a4, a7-a6. | I have created a monster! She is going to cram all her queen pawns down my throat and get more queens! I decide to save square a7 for my king bishop to safely attack the future white castle. |
| 5. Ng1-h3, Bf8-c5. | An irregular move allows me to develop my king bishop. |
| 6. b2-b3, d7-d6. | Hooray, I got my bishop posted in the nick of time, in case it were attacked by that pawn. I assume she did not notice her extra queen was backing it up, but I was prepared for the bishop to retreat to a7. Now that my king bishop is posted, this pawn move releases my queen bishop and prepares to bring out my king knight. I still don't know how well she plays! |
| 7. a4-a5, Ng8-f6. | Her move allows me to develop my king knight, attacking her (protected) king pawn. |
| 8. e4-e5, Nc6xe5. | She is a good enough player to attack my knight, so I'm glad I prepared to defend with my queen pawn, connecting my center pawns. Instead, I choose to take her pawn with my knight, intending to castle and planning to discover check. |
| 9. NH3-f4, Bc8-d7. | I wanted to castle, then move the rook to e8, and win with a double check with Ne5-d3, but the computer game would not allow me to castle! So I phoned Talia and we set up the board to see what would have happened. When I moved the rook to align with her king, she immediately saw my plan and posted her bishop on e2, defending well! So I showed her my plan for checkmate (not just check), because she had ruined it. Then I moved my bishop instead to try a queenside castle in the computer game, planning to post that bishop on c6 to attack her future castle. |
| 10. f2-f3, O-O-O. | She probably advanced the pawn to prevent my king knight from attacking, which was very effective, but it opened up her potential castle. The computer allowed my queenside castle. |
| 11. Bf1-e2, Rd8-e8. | She anticipated my next move and stubbornly left that bishop there for the entire game! That made things very difficult indeed for me! It looked like she didn't plan on castling, so I left my king rook to stay behind my king pawns to protect them when attacking. |
| 12. Rh1-f1, g7-g5. | Indeed, she didn't want to castle, which could have been disastrous because if could play d4-d3, my bishop would penetrate the castle. I had to attack the knight who was ruining my plans of d4-d3, and my move prepared for my king rook to attack. |
| 13. Nf4-d3!, Bd7-f5! | Her move was either lucky or brilliant, but it frustrated my plans of d4-d3. I was expecting the knight to go to d5, but this one attacks both my knight (designated to win) as well as my bishop! Her apparently more defensive move surprised me with strong offense too! That knight had to go, and I had good move prepared, winning a queen if she dared to capture one of my pieces! |
| 14. Nd3-f2, d4-d3. | This defensive move surprised me, expecting her take my dreaded knight, perhaps not even seeing the threat to the auxiliary queen. Her move keeps pressure on my coveted d3 square, but it allowed me to take her extra queen, which she must not have noticed, but I was focused on the king! If I pushed that pawn now, the knight could just take it! Here I considered many responses to pushing the pawn (and so should the student): if her knight took it, I could play 15 ... Ne5xd3+; 16 K-d2, Bc5-b4+; 17 K-c2, ...; or 15 ... Bf5xd3 and hope. Of course, if her bishop takes the poison pawn, I win with 15 ... Ne5xf3, but she has already seen that option! My final choice had to be to give that brave pawn his day in the sun to attack the bishop with two queens, a bishop and a knight all attacking him! |
| 15. g2-g3??, Ne5xf3! mate. | The brave pawn's courage paid off! She apparently did not want to lose her knight for that little pawn. Fortunately, she didn't see that her king knight pawn was now her only protection against checkmate! Her posting of that faithful king bishop lasted to the very end, but my patience to execute the very plan which I had shown her finally paid off! I had been waiting to pounce on any little mistake and my dream was fulfilled! This is definitely a war game! |