What I realised after many years of playing, is that the best chess games I played were the ones that looked so "easy" from the outside, natural, and spontaneous ever for beginners. This is what I call "linear thinking". Here I provide a short but hopefully effective example.
Me! - chess_inventer, lichess, May 2022; https://lichess.org/rL1LiCAX3oGK
1.Nf3 d5
I developed one piece to start with, but other moves would have been completely fine. My opponent occupied the centre, which is very reasonable.
2.c4 Nf6
So I attacked his centre with the 'c' pawn, as in theory exchanging lateral pawns for central pawns is advantageous for us. My opponent decided to give up the centre by defending his pawn with a knight.
3.cxd5 Nxd5
So I took advantage of this opportunity to capture his central pawn to create a strong pawn centre. He recaptured with his knight, as capturing the queen would have given me an advantage in developing after 4.Nc3.
4.Nc3 Nb6
I developed the other knight to start making pressure on the centre. Equally good for White would have been 4.d4 or 4.e4. He moved the knight away, which In my opinion was not urgent and did not help him to complete his development or achieve anything else.
5.d4 Bf5
I occupied the centre and he developed the bishop, but in a suspicious position that allowed me to strengthen my centre even more.
6.e4 Bg6
At this point, I decided to attack his bishop with my knight even at the price of moving the same piece twice in the opening. I took this decision because the bishops are slightly stronger than the knights in open positions such as this one and because since my opponent had lost a few tempi in the opening, I had the luxury to lose one tempo myself to translate it into a positional advantage.
7.Ne5 e6?!
There was also another reason why I found 7.Ne5 attractive. Black has to be careful and contrast the knight immediately with 7...N8d7. The reason is that, although I want to capture the bishop with my knight, I am not going to do it now, but only when the conditions will be ideal. 7...e6 did not help against my next move.
8.h4!
A strong tactical and positional threat. The tactical idea is obvious, I'd like to win the bishop with 9.h5. The positional threat is also not difficult to see. To avoid losing his bishop, Black must give it an escape route with 9...h6 or 9...h5 (best is 9...f6), which allows White to spoil Black's pawn structure.
8...Bd6?
Mmm, suspicious. My opponent decided not to provide an escape route to his bishop, which means that I have to calculate the consequences of 9.h5 now. This is a moment of concrete calculation that we cannot avoid in the game of chess. No excuses for laziness!
9.h5! Bxe5
I attacked the bishop and he captured my knight.
10.dxe5 Qxd1+
I captured back with the pawn and he captured my queen with a check.
11.Kxd1
I captured the queen back with the king so that my knight c3 still defends the pawn e4 and his bishop is lost. And he resigned. Wasn't it very linear thinking?!
To the next game!
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