Game versus Palinurus

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Played white and lost. Resigned after 37 moves. Game ended last 19 April 2006.

Right at 3. Nd5 I disregarded one of the rules in the opening stages of a game: do not move a piece twice unless it will free up more pieces or to capture an opponent’s piece.

4. Bc4 – what was I thinking? Maybe hoping for a late Fool’s Mate? I should have considered it unlikely from the quality of the moves he had been making.

5. Qf3 – indeed! How foolhardy! With 5…Be7, Fool’s Mate is a goner, and I haven’t developed my pieces yet, and my queen is exposed prematurely.

6…O-O early development allowed black to castle well ahead of time, while I still need to move two pieces to do so. At 8, blood is drawn – mine!

At 11, Queen is right back where it started.

The rest of the game is a series of moves that were done haphazardly and in haste, without really giving much attention to the repercussions of each move towards the total development of the pieces. The worst error perhaps would have to be at 29.

The main problem would have to be the lack of a plan, or perhaps lack of depth if ever there was a plan. I may be thinking of capturing a piece or getting into a position, but I had not sufficiently considered the situation. In most cases, I made a move with the intention of gaining a piece advantage only to recognize that the pieces are defended by one more defense than I thought. Too many of that proved to be disastrous, especially with regards to the more important pieces.