French Defense: Win (1633-1655)

Tomorrow is the last day we need to punch in at work before summer vacation officially starts. Yesterday I visited a student at the hospital who had jumped or fallen off a roof at night, had broken bones in three parts of his body, and will be spending his summer vacation undergoing surgeries and rehab. If Trump's MOA with the Iranians holds, my summer will be spent visiting two countries, the first of which is a chess superpower with fifteen clubs in the capital city alone and more GMs per capita than any country not a microstate.

In this afternoon's game Chess.com matched me with one director777, rated 1637 out of Ukraine. On move twenty-two I blundered a full rook because I hallucinated White's king moving to a light square. It was mentally devastating: another loss to a 1600+ opponent would call into question the validity of my Rapid rating milestone. But I knew the onus was on opponent to convert his advantage and if I could keep pressure on his uncastled king while avoiding getting mated myself I might outlast him on the clock. Sure enough, on move twenty-nine opponent blundered back a bish and on move forty-seven a knight, and I knew he was imploding. On move fifty-six opponent resigned, and just like that I am two or three wins away from 1700.

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Assigned the black pieces, I replied to White's 1.e4 with the French 1...e6, whereupon White's 2.e5 introduced the Steinitz Attack. The engine's top move for Black is 2...c5 to control d4, but I've played it before and prefer the more straightforward 2...d6. Surprisingly, White pushed 3.d4, inviting 3...dxe5 4.dxe5 Qxd1+ 5.Kxd1 and the engine evaluated our position at -0.75. I attacked e5 with 5...Nc6, and White defended with 6.f4.

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