Against Stockfish: Game #41: Courage holds even the mightiest

I will try including multiple games in my next Against Stockfish article. If it proves to be more successful, I will stick to it, which will make my blog posts less frequent. Whether I will stick to it or not will decide on the number of views and feedback I receive. Now without any more talk, let's look at the game.

The Game

• This game wasn't that exciting. But it did feature a few highlights. The first one was when Stockfish played 11...e5, breaking open the centre. White has to be careful after this move as his king is still in the centre. But I was precise, especially on the 14th move
• It took me a lot of courage to play the move 14.Bd6. It was my first instinct to play it, but I also saw that 14.0-0 also led to a playable position which couldn't be better for black. While I knew that 14.Bd6 Re8 15.e5 or 0-0 had to be at least slightly better for white, I wasn't sure about 14.Bd6 Bxc4!? sacrificing the exchange. But my calculation didn't tally with the fact that black was better, hence, I built up my courage and played the move Bd6, allowing Stockfish to attack my king by sacrificing the rook. I was entering a calculation battle against Stockfish.
• But my courageous act was rewarded in the end. I had to be precise for a few moves, but after that, Stockfish was forced to repeat or else it would have been worse. I could have played on according to post-game analysis, but during the game, I didn't think it was going to be that easy. Hence I repeated and made the draw.

While this wasn't the most exciting draw, it still required me to make precise and brave decisions. The IAA worked perfectly in this game to focus my thoughts in the right direction. With this draw, I have scored 2 points in the last 10 games, so I am improving. It implies that even if I never find a way to beat Stockfish, this won't be a waste of time.

Lessons from this game

• Having courage and confidence is important.
• Openings matter. If Stockfish had played a more challenging opening than the accelerated dragon, an opening considered inferior at the computer level, the results could have been different.
• Most of the time waiting is a better strategy to get an advantage while aggression is good to equalize (11...e5)

Announcement

I want to take this as an opportunity to let you know about something. As I said on my Twitter account, I am playing in a tournament again. It will be a standard-rated event. I won't specify the date, but it's going to start very soon. I will not make the same mistake I made in the last tournament. I am not going to play this event for results. I am playing it for improvement. I will try using the algorithm in these games, and we'll see how it goes. The only issue I have with the IAA is I still haven't figured out a method that will allow me to calculate the time I should use on each move, so I will have to rely on my experience for time management. But apart from that, I don't see why it shouldn't work. I have a good feeling about this. I trust my algorithm, and I will try to play at my best in this event. Whatever happens, I can guarantee you one thing, I won't come home, without improving.

And that's it for this article, I'll see you in the next blog post!

One more thing before you leave, I have decided to re-add the external links section:

External links

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@felew699
Twitter: https://x.com/felew699
Against Stockfish: https://lichess.org/study/2guM490P
Club of Believers - to those interested in fighting the machines: https://lichess.org/team/the-club-of-believers
Algorithm (IAA) explanation: https://lichess.org/@/felew699/blog/future-of-my-algorithms/DIRkWzKO

Special Thanks to...

Grammar Editor: https://app.grammarly.com/