Meeting the Italian with a Piano

The old Giuoco Piano. Seriously. It’s like the oldest opening. I think that the main theme of classic open games came to life. Center control, getting a passed pawn. In the end, my opponent made a very poor tactical move. He was playing down from the beginning, although I missed a few chances to break it open. Interestingly, for an open game, we played pretty well. One of his blunders was at the end after his painful one, so I don’t count it. Therefore we each made 5 objectively poor moves. The difference is that he had a mistake and a blunder for my two inaccuracies. Also, whenever I see that spike of one move then another (in this case two mistakes) it’s generally a time he hung a piece or would have lost an exchange…but I missed it completely, no harm no foul (and sometimes a better spot for him if he moves out of the poor position into a great one).