Post your best miniatures here

Absolutely, as a competitive game it was incomplete: it may or may not be winning to an oracle while in practice it is merely a big edge to white.

The noteworthiness was in how high the evaluation was and its inconsistency with the estimated ratings from the analysis tool. It seems I was lucky enough to play almost perfectly while my opponent made a couple of inaccurate moves to get to a dubious position.

It's an open question whether black made any real mistakes. The engine says the inaccuracies added up, but an oracle would find either all the moves were fine or one of them gave white the win.

Or he had had a hot curry the night before and needed to run...

A lot of my games have estimated ratings of 2300 or a bit less. The others don't. And then there are the ones lost on time in good positions - one yesterday where I had mate in 1 on the board. The clock is not my friend.

Why is b2 granted two question marks? It's not like Black had a escape, at least I don't see one. If Kc8 or Ke8 White plays Bxd7+ Qxd7 and then Ra8+ winning

Good game btw.

A blitz miniature I just finished, not my best honestly, lots of mistakes but a nice rook sac in the end

Chess Game on Android - Chess.com [Event "Vis_xx vs Herculae-Na"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2024-11-07"] [White "Vis_xx"] [Black "Herculae-Na"] [Result "0-1"] [WhiteElo "437"] [BlackElo "460"] [TimeControl "600"] [Termination "Herculae-Na won by checkmate"] 1. e4 d5 2. exd5 Qxd5 3. c3 Nf6 4. d3 Bg4 5. f3 Qe5+ 6. Kd2 Nc6 7. fxg4 Qg5+ 8. Kc2 Nd4+ 9. cxd4 Nd5 10. Bxg5 Nb4+ 11. Kb3 Nxd3 12. Qxd3 Rd8 13. Nf3 e6 14. d5 Rxd5 15. Qc3 Bd6 16. Qxg7 Rf8 17. Qxh7 Rb5+ 18. Kc2 Rc5+ 19. Kb3 a5 20. Ka3 b5 21. Bh6 Rc3# 0-1

The analysis tool seems to consider the conversion of a distant mate (too far for the engine, but 6 pawn eval) to a close one (mate in 2) a blunder. It's not in a theoretical sense.

What is/was stopping you from taking the knight on d5?

Yeah, I think that's it. Allowing mate in 2 is a blunder, mate in 7 or 8 moves is a 'lesser' blunder. And actually, it makes sense. If you're low on time, you could lose going the longer route to mate.

Or win by time if you manage to delay the mate long enough. But in any case I thought you had put the question marks yourself not the engine, so I get it now.

You're replying to a message posted by the OG thread op 13 years ago, I don't think he's even active on chess.com anymore 😄

Actually looks like Ben was on the site today,

Well color me surprised, I've been on this thread for years and never seen him post anything, I just assumed he was a goner. Never bothered to check his history lol.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, 'Reports of Ben Dubuque's death have been greatly exaggerated.'

A Scandinavian gone right. Just played one of my best miniatures, more so because of the brilliant variations underneath.

Excellent opening play by white starts to go wrong with 15. f3 (blocks the bishop from h5, allowing Nh5) when the dark square diagonal h6-c1 became the story of the rest of the game. The engine review preferred 16...Bf6 and ...Bg5 (I didn't think of this) with the same idea as my wacky looking ...Kh7 and ...Bh6, but another look with more depth of analysis finds there is not much difference and having the g5 square free was very useful to me.

That looks very similar to my anti-KID line. But I don't exchange my DSB unless it's under favourable circumstances because those squares will suffer, as in your game. And of course f3?? is just a terrible move, White can say goodbye to all the kingside play after it.

Good game. The notes were interesting, especially the 'psuedo queen sac'.

3...f5 is an unusual sideline in the KGA. It's a little dubious, but on my basement level you can get away with it. Often leads to some wild stuff, like in this game.