Game Analysis #3: Nimzowitsch Defense, Franco-Nimzowitsch Variation

After Black's move 8

My third online game was quite terrible for me. I made several mistakes and missed a couple of moves which lead to the crumbling of my position until it totally falls apart in the end, forcing me to resign.



For the first eight moves, everything seemed all right for both sides. White probably has a slight advantage but there was nothing significantly heinous in either of our positions. Now, when you don't know what to do in the position, this is the time when you should probably make a safe move like after the last move, I could have castled or simply developed my light-squared bishop but my next move proves that when you don't know what to do, sometimes you panic and make the wrong choice of moves.



I wanted to be a little flashy and I thought that attacking his queen would be a good move but my pieces were not in stable squares and there really was no threat but simply an exchange of pieces but I get the bad ending since my pieces were awkwardly placed. Further, I could have lost my knight there since it got trapped on the side. Thankfully, my opponent did not see it and I barely escaped that threat.


After getting out by the skin of my teeth, I was finally able to complete my development and now I get into an endgame where we have equal material but White has a slight advantage because of his piece activity and pawn structure. However, I did get a chance to gain a good lead but I blew it by not taking his d-pawn when he offered it to me. And that caused my demise although to be fair, my position had started to crumble even before that so it only expedited the inevitable.


That sealed the deal and my opponent crushed me in the end so I had to resign although I could have pushed further but I would be down a piece and a pawn in the endgame so there was no hope there. But this was an unfamiliar territory for me back then, I only wanted to try the French Defense because it seemed interesting although it transitioned into a Nimzowitsch Defense which slightly caught me off guard although I did not know much theory on either opening. I tried to complicate matters which backfired but later on, I learned that simple is better unless you are facing an opening that has tons of theory behind it and in that case, you better know what you're getting yourself into.