nygren.ca

I really liked this checkmate. I felt like I was dancing around, having so many pieces threatened constantly that you could take, if only not for another piece putting you in check. It felt elegant. :D

But yes. Nc5 actually forces me to retreat, otherwise your next move is c3, forcing me to give you my knight for free. Either my queen or my knight is required to retreat, then, to prevent the fork.

Ah! I thought you'd do Kd7 Nd5+ (Ke8 | Ke6) Nx7 instead, lol.

That would have been so much better.

Nc5, rather than Nf6, was the right move.

It's extremely strong tactically but the pawn move often cost you initiative and/or development. The strength, though, is that it can dictate decisions made in the middle to prevent it's strength. More often than not it's the threat, not the actuality, in which it's power lies.

The fianchetto is coming up a lot since BP's. May need to do a little research.

Your bishop move while I was doing my fianchetto was a very weak move. I gambled a little bit with the fianchetto, you could have pressured me hard with Nf6 and stalling out my initiative. I decided to give up my initiative for the later tactical advantage of the fianchetto. But by not pressuring me and moving your bishop up, you gave me too much time and suddenly my middle strength was too strong. The threat of my bishop on that diagonal ended up almost forcing you into the loss you ended up experiencing, because doing a trade on that square would have opened up the diagonal, which is what I was originally going for.