Excuses, excuses

You can call them rank beginners.

They are the newbies who console themselves after a loss with excuses.

“Well, at least I got to announce check,” for example.

Or, “I forced him to retreat his queen.”

With experience they learn that the checks and threats that matter most are the ones that can’t be answered.

In this week’s game, Black was prompted to make three retreats in his first 13 moves. But by then he had the better winning chances.

He would have been on the road to victory after 15 Nc7 g5! 16 Bxa8 gxf4 or 16 Nxe8 Nxe8.

White made his first retreat at move 17. When he didn’t want to make his second, 18 Nf3!, he turned a bad position into a lost one.

After 24…Qh3 he had no good defense to the threat of 25…Ng4 and 26…Qxh2+.