Steven Pope

I think I would take the pawn and go for the e-pawn after this.

Controlling the center, one of my favorite chess strategies.

Trying not to move the same piece twice in the first 12 moves allows for better development.

Having the ability to get as many pieces into the game as possible, definitely something I am more in favor of.

All right, so it's going to get really messy here in the next two to three moves, and I'm not sure what's going to happen, to be honest.

I'm going to be reactive on this next move, most likely.

We'll see what happens.

All right, so he went with the bishop, and he would end up with the knight outpost, if I take.

but that knight could only go on positions I'm not too worried about.

If I take the pawn and he takes the bishop, my queen just activates.

I think that's probably fine.

If I take the pawn and he takes the pawn, the knight takes the pawn, and I'm actually up a pawn, but my d-pawn will be weak.

I think that's what I'm going to go for here.

I think I'm just going to take... He really should have taken with knight, in my opinion.

He took the knight here.

Interesting.

I'm going to have a double isolated G pawn, which is not great, honestly.

So that might have made my E pawn take wrong.

If we put that into computer analysis, I bet you it would tell us that was a wrong move.

Probably cost me one point would be my guess.