Remember when I said that I liked the Sicilian Defense? Well, back then, I really hated going up against it because I couldn't seem to figure out how to counter it as White. And this game is one such example of my cluelessness of the Sicilian. But even then, it also shows my lack of opening knowledge. When I made the computer analyze this game, I was quite surprised that neither I nor my opponent made too many blunders, mistakes, or inaccuracies. My opponent only made one inaccuracy while I made two inaccuracies, two mistakes, and one blunder. But if you look at the evaluation, the computer says that Black had a winning advantage all throughout the game. So let's see why.
Again, I didn't have any grasp of opening principles or opening knowledge especially in the Sicilian way back when. So I simply tried to do what I thought would be different and throw my opponent off his groove but that didn't happen. Not at all. In fact, I was the one thrown off my game because I made a big blunder very early on. Most of the moves I made during the opening were already dubious in the first place so I was already at a disadvantage but come move 7, things just slid downhill very quickly. I blundered my bishop because I wasn't looking at the board and thinking about my moves.
From move 7, things weren't just going to go my way at all. It can't be turned around unless my opponent makes a big blunder himself which didn't happen. However, one thing I noticed when I look at the game is that my opponent wasn't able to mate me efficiently. Although, I have done this myself especially in shorter time controls or just because I'm a sadistic person but I sometimes delay checkmate just so that I get the satisfaction of torturing my opponent. Or I just can't find the best way to mate him unless I take all his pieces and then checkmate him.
In any case, the game ended after 56 moves which felt like it was too long. Then again, the computer said that my opponent didn't make any mistakes so I guess that was okay. In fact, there were several points in the game when my opponent had mate in one move (or n moves, because he kept missing the checkmate) and he just went on without delivering mate at all. Whether he saw that there was mate or just wanted to prolong the game beats me but I just felt that it was an inefficient way of winning a game. I'm probably not in the position to criticize my opponent for his means of winning but still, I probably wasted a lot of time with this game when I played it.
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