Material Possessiveness – Give up the Queen? – Queen’s Gambit Declined Slav Defense

Here I look at a case where relinquishing possession of my Queen would’ve dramatically improved my winning chances in a blitz game I played at ChessCube (Queen’s Gambit Declined Slav Defense line). I also failed to take the c4 pawn (dxc4) during the opening, which is usually a common theme in the Slav to reach equality. Time controls were 3 min + 2 second increment. My rating on ChessCube at the time of this game was 2151; my opponents rating was 2134. [Event "ChessCube Game"] [Site "www.chesscube.com"] [Date "2012.01.10"] [Round "-"] [White "chuckzilla@chesscube.com"] [Black "piewalker@chesscube.com"] [Result "1-0"] [Time "12:59:16"] [TimeControl "180+2"] 1. d4 d5 2. c4 c6 3. Nf3 Nf6 4. Nc3 g6 5. Bg5 Bg7 6. e3 OO 7. Bd3 Bg4 8. h3 Bxf3 9. Qxf3 Nbd7 10. cxd5 cxd5 11. OO e6 12. Rac1 a6 13. a3 Rc8 14. Rc2 Qb6 15. Rfc1 h6 16. Bh4 g5 17. Bg3 Rfe8 18. Na4 1-0