Milestone: 1700 on Lichess Rapid

Postprandial chess is generally a bad idea. The body is heavy with the weight of new food, muscles are slow to react, and the brain is lazy. It being a Saturday afternoon, and having slept poorly the night before on account of two mosquitoes in my room, shortly after finishing lunch I decided I needed a nap. Before retiring to bed, however, I sat at my desk for a game of what I thought was anonymous chess.

Without checking if I was logged in or not, I selected "10+0 Rapid" from the Lichess Quick Pairing menu and in an instant a game was launched. Earlier in the day I was berating myself for failing to find and create tactics in my games, but in this game my approach was carefree. I wanted nothing more than to sit back and relax for ten or fifteen minutes, maybe even check the news between moves if my opponent was slow.

Fatigue at computer

The way my opponent played, our circumstances may as well have been identical. andressalinger, rated 1640, declined my Queen's Gambit with the Marshall Defense. Why anyone plays the Marshall I'll never understand. Maybe there are Marshall experts out there who have success with this opening, but in my experience White invariably gets a strong presence in the center early while Black lags in development and gets no compensation. Richard James of chessKIDS academy has this advice for Black in his guide to the Queen's Gambit:

Don't play 2...Ng8-f6. This is a poor move. White plays [3.c4xd5] and whichever way Black recaptures his piece will be open to attack by e2-e4 [or Nb1-c3].

But that's what Black played. And making matters worse for him, on move 5 he developed his queenside knight to a6. That's right: a6. Then on move 8 he attacked my knight on c3 with his bish -- but it wasn't even a pin because I'd already castled. Two moves later he retreated his bish to e7 but in so doing gifted me a tempo, which I capitalized on to capture his pawn on h7 with check. It's no wonder I was sure this was an anonymous game. The shenanigans continued on move 15 when he allowed me to fork his rook and knight from b7 with my bish.

On move 19 we arrived at this position:

19. Bxf6 Nxf6

Black had just captured my bishop on f6, and the obvious next move for me was 20.exf6. But I thought, You know what? If I can get my knight to g5 and eliminate Black's night on f6, I'll either force a trade of my knight for Black's rook or possibly even checkmate him with 22.Qb7#. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but what does it matter, anyway it's not a rated game.

After 20.Ng5, Black played 20...Bc6, as if his king were completely safe and he could go on the offensive. I continued 21.exf6, expecting 21...Rf7 but hoping for any other move. Black delivered on my hopes and played 21...Bxg2. I ended the game with 22.Qb7#, and great was my surprise when I noticed that "+17" appeared beside my username. All this time I had been logged in.

It has taken me thirteen months to raise my Rapid rating on Lichess from 1600 to 1700, and it comes at a time when I'm at fresh all-time highs in three other chess formats on the site:

Format	Rating	Date
Bullet	1246	2023-06-22
Blitz	1438	2023-06-16
Rapid	1707	2023-06-24
King of the Hill	1614	2023-06-19