Asking for trouble

My return to CCF for the monthly Superleague game was to be the last of six consecutive games with the white pieces. For once it really was 'super', since I was playing an FM - not that that's been anything special lately. My opponent was Alan Hanreck (209/2268), who was playing his first FIDE-rated game for 19 years! He's been an active evening league player though, so was by no means rusty. Team-wise, we were obviously in trouble since I had to go on board one: 180-209, 124-186, 99-158, 93-134.

My weeknight performance had been surprisingly good up to this point of the season, but I'm always capable of playing atrociously after a long day. This was one of Mr Hyde's appearances: after some careless play in the opening, I limped into a miserable queenless middlegame and then marched into a mating net:

No-one will be surprised to read that the team lost 0-4, but the next few matches should offer a little more hope. There aren't any other FMs in the league, anyway!

I still think 5. gxf3!? is quite strong, but the game underlines that White takes on some obligations when he plays like this. Unwittingly allowing a queen swap on move 10 didn't help my cause then, but e4-e5 is so obviously premature. I didn't start playing any better afterwards, utterly failing to grasp the danger to my king posed by Black's active pieces and open lines. The end was fitting.

My next game turned out to be an unplanned one, since I thought I'd got out of the habit of random appearances as a filler. But apparently not...