Hi Rob,

Thank you for taking your time playing these games move by move and making your comments.  Yes, indeed my game against Ozzie was probably the best game I’ve ever played.  It was the first time I played against titled player with over 2000 rating points. 

In the beginning, I was just trying to survive for forty moves with Reti system. Then in the mid-game I played for a draw. Later when pushing pawns fun began, I had an opportunity to attack.  I set up a physical board to analyze the position and tried different moves and responses (I hope it is not considered as cheating since I played against myself).  The physical board really helped to make better moves and I consider moves 41 (Queen could not take my Knight) and 47 being the best in this game.

I was under tremendous pressure from his a2 pawn ready to be promoted so I had to maintain mate treating position the last twelve moves.

After this game ended I sent a message to one of my good friend and outstanding chess player who I met at chess.com asking him to analyze this game (I couldn’t believe that Ozzie played to his best ability).  Here is part of his response:….

"

wonderful game tarkus!  i looked it over move by move.  to answer your question directly, i don't believe he played 'beneath' himself.  he certainly didn't play as sharply in the opening as he could have, but i still would have given him a slight advantage after the opening (mid 20's or so on moves).  the middle game was played fairly evenly until the pawn pushing started.  this is where he lost his way some, but in all fairness, you played magnificently from that point on!  in fact, with one exception on move 44, i believe you played the best possible moves from 37 through to the mate!

 .....

on a side note, i LOVE the reti system!  it was my pet opening when i competed in the 'olden' days.  played it around 70% of the time as white.  have you been playing it long?  or are you just now experimenting with it?  anytime i can be of help with that system, please let me know.  i had the reputation of being 'the' expert at it back in the day.  i'm sure there are many wrinkles that i would have to catch up to after 3 decades away from it, but not so many that i couldn't give some wonderful advice anytime you need it.

EXCELLENTLY PLAYED!!!!!!!!!!!,

Art

In my game against karibola I saw an opportunity to attack his poorly protected king using two sides of the board.  After my Queen and Rook penetrated through White defense, he resigned after move 37 (the mate or significant material loss was threaten after Qc1+).

I understand that both these games are not perfect and a good chess player would probably find a number of mistakes and better moves that could lead to different outcomes. Being an amateur player (not taken a single lesson in chess, never participating in any tournament higher than my kitchen room’s level, and staying away from chess for about 12-15 years), it makes me really proud to have won these games, even though they were meaningless in both tournament standings and my chess.com rating.  

Gary, great idea posting your games like this. I would follow your good example, only I don't have any big upsets to boast yet!

In your game against ozzie, I loved your 41. Nd4 and 42. Ne6+. Nice set-up... Was this a tournament game?

And what happened with karibola? Did he resign? I must be dim but I don't see why... I knew there was a reason I cannot beat players rated 1950 or above!

Ciao - Rob

Here is another one: