C47 Scotch Four Knights and Four Knights with 4.g3 (1.e4 e5 2.Nc3 Nc6 3.Nf3 Nf6 4.d3 d5)

This tournament is still one of the worst that I have played at the FIDE Online Arena. In these first three rounds, I lost two out of three despite the fact that I was clearly the higher rated player in all of those three games. In the last two rounds of the tournament I did won both of the remaining games but because the last round game I won on time, due to the fact that my opponent did not make any moves in that game, it did feel a bit like a tournament where nothing goes my way. In the few months time that have passed since this game was played, I think that my playing strength has improved enough that these kind of bad performances are not likely to appear as often as they may have appeared in the past. My recent statistics should be confirming my current improvement in strength, I have managed to get to the 98.7 percentile at Chess.com's Online Chess ratings. The fact that I had a streak of 20 games at the FIDE Online Arena with a score of 13 wins, 6 draws and 1 loss would also suggest that I am doing something right. Still those stats might be a bit misleading because I have faced only one opponent in those 20 games. After that 20 game period I have a lost two games in a row. Those games are part of the 100 game match I am playing against a friend of mine that when I started playing chess in over the board tournaments, I lost pretty much all the time against him. I have added one mate in one, one mate in three, one mate in four and two mate in five puzzles today. Until Monday, my fellow chess enthusiasts!

[Event "Tournament 28604120"] [Site "online arena"] [Date "2015.04.05"] [Round "3"] [White "vannan"] [Black "Vierjoki, Timo"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C47"] [WhiteElo "1547"] [BlackElo "1869"] [Annotator "Tactical Analysis 2.10 (30s)"] [PlyCount "39"] [EventDate "2015.??.??"] {[%evp 9,39,-55,-22,-58,-57,-64,-63,-86,-33,-28,-29,-48,-34,-58,-22,-23,0,0,0, -10,28,39,1104,1122,1319,524,1333,1325,1325,1310,1405,1248]} 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Nf3 Nf6 {C46 Four Knights Game: General} 4. d3 d5 {C47 Scotch Four Knights and Four Knights with 4.g3} 5. Qe2 (5. Bg5 dxe4 6. dxe4 Qxd1+ 7. Rxd1 Bb4 {1/2-1/2 (7) Krasnov,V (2352) -Parfjonov,P (2252) Yaroslavl 1995}) 5... dxe4 6. Nxe4 Be7 $146 (6... Bg4 7. h3 Bh5 8. Qe3 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Nd4 10. Qd1 Qd5 11. f3 Qc6 12. Nc3 Bb4 13. Bd2 Rd8 14. a3 Ba5 15. Be2 Nd5 16. Qc1 Bxc3 17. O-O Nxe2+ 18. Kh1 Nxc1 19. Raxc1 Bxd2 20. Rcd1 Bf4 21. c4 {Baraut,A (1299)-Bignon, A (1550) France 2004 0-1}) 7. Bd2 O-O 8. O-O-O {Black is slightly better.} Qd5 {-0.33/26} (8... a5 $17 {-0.86/20}) 9. Kb1 $15 Be6 10. Nc3 Qa5 {[%tqu "En","", "","","f3g5","",10]} 11. Ng5 $1 Bg4 12. f3 Bf5 13. g4 Bd7 14. h4 Nd5 15. Qe4 $36 {[%mdl 2048] [#] White has the initiative.} Nxc3+ $4 {11.04/23 [%mdl 8192]} (15... Nf6 $14 {0.39/25} 16. Qe3 Nd4) 16. Bxc3 $18 {White is clearly winning.} ({Not} 16. bxc3 g6 $17) 16... f5 17. gxf5 {5.24/27} (17. Bxa5 fxe4 18. dxe4 Nxa5 $16) (17. Qc4+ $142 {13.19/24} Kh8 18. Bxa5) 17... Bxf5 18. Qc4+ ({ Less strong is} 18. Bxa5 Bxe4 19. fxe4 (19. Nxe4 Nxa5 20. Be2 Nc6 $11) 19... Bxg5 $16) 18... Kh8 19. Bxa5 Nxa5 20. Qxc7 {Accuracy: White = 67%, Black = 20%. } 1-0