The most demoralizing game I ever played.

Someone 400+ points more than me trolled me with some gambit in the opening then I was just winning for dozens of turns then I blundered and lose. I feel like they were almost just like bongclouding me and flexing how they never blunder but the lower rated ones blunder so they can still win.

Not an expert, and bongclouding is a new chess term to me (sandbagging?) but it looks like you missed a few aggressive moves, had a few hanging pieces, then the overworked knight in center was it. Happens

@Edgy1 Bongclouding isnt sandbagging haha, Bongcloud is a troll opening 1.e4 e5 2.Ke2??. In essence he is feeling like he has been trolled in a similar way despite the opening not looking like it is a troll.

So, are you saying People are trolls because they know moves that you dont.
Are players trolls because they play what they want.
The way I see it, if I wanna play chess, i can play whatever gambit I want, am I a chess troll because of that?

Bongcloud is a ridiculous opening. Only people who want to humiliate their opponents would play it and then try to win the game.

(Very different from the Carlsen-Nakamura Double Bongcloud, which was also ridiculous, but was meant in a good-natured way to offer a draw.)

@chessfan124 I don't think you were trolled, and you shouldn't feel humiliated to lose to a significantly stronger player. Your opponent's Ke2 move appears to me to be a more or less sound developing move, albeit unusual. Definitely not a Bongcloud.

You should analyze the game and do your best to learn from it. You might find some ideas that you can use in your future games.

Playing someone who is hundreds of points higher than you can be a bit like getting to play spy. Steal their secrets and make them yours!

And it's a perfectly good strategy to play positionally and wait for your opponent to make mistakes. Karpov did that all the time, playing super-solid and taking advantage of small errors in his opponent's play. Something similar happened here, it seems.

I've forgotten who said: "When you play Karpov nothing happens, and then you lose."

That's kinda like that line about Capa: "You always know what's going to happen to you...and there's not a darned thing you can do about it."

@chessfan124 don't worry about it I have seen worse. Positions like that have been blundered even by grandmasters. Besides if you practice and play well you may beat him on the next game.