Thanks! You too!
I've never played chess on a forum like this before. Hopefully this is right?
Hm, you're right. In that scenario I'd probably d6 instead of Nf6 and save the Nf6 for later? Eh. I very rarely play chess online. I'm not used to seeing the pieces like this, haha.
Then again, white has to spend an extra move in order to castle on king's side if Qe2, I suppose, since the king's bishop can't move immediately. *shrug*Umlaut wrote: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nxe5 Nxe4? 4. Qe2 and White is just winning.
IUmlaut wrote:I'm sorry you missed out on the tournament! I may run another next year (or try and sweet-talk someone else into doing so) so if you stick around you'll likely have another chance.
To which I would (as black) do 6... Nf6 to absolutely encourage that trade, since: 7 Qxe7 Bxe7 (sorry if that's the wrong annotation) allows me to develop the king-side bishop and castle next turn quite comfortably, although I'm a big advocator of Bg7 in a lot of games including the one we're currently playing (it's a childhood thing).In post 11, Umlaut wrote:The difference between the two scenarios is that, after 4. Nf3 Nxe4 5. Qe2, Black can just respond symmetrically with 5... Qe7 to unpin (this generally leads to an early queen trade and a rather drawish position).
I completely agree that black is worse off for this, even something as minor as the white queen being on the same coloured square as black's king whereas black's queen remains stationary.In post 11, Umlaut wrote:Actually 4... Qe7 is also black's best try after 4. Qe2 but it doesn't quite work, with Black still down a pawn after 5. Qxe4 d6 6. d5 dxe5 7. dxe5.
In my experience people who make the mistake of playing 3... Nxe4? generally don't follow up with the best continuation, and instead the game goes something like 4. Qe2 d5 5. d3 Nf6?? 6. Nc6+ 1−0
Mm. As mentioned earlier I would have responded with 2... d6 to prevent the immediate capture of my pawn to begin with. I can't say I've run into that scenario in many of my games either (as far as I can remember at least), but I have a feeling you've playedUmlaut wrote:That annotation looks right to me! I would say the position at that point is quite equal; you could argue Black has a one-tempo advantage but given that you're headed for an early endgame it's unlikely to really matter. That said, as white I prefer to play 5. d4 rather than 5. Qe2 so this doesn't often come up for me.