The Game:
With a resignation on move 53, the game has ended.
With an accuracy of 86% relative to computer analysis, this is an extremely solid playing level. (The computer managed 93%, which I naively estimate puts our collective rating somewhere around 2000.) As I suspect we had no candidate masters or actual master players, this is a marked improvement over the individual players, who probably cap out at around 1500, with most lower than that.
The most important move was probably 20. a4. Before then, the game may have been a draw or a victory for white, but after that, it became a draw or a victory for black because of how it weakened the queenside. (The computer, as seen here, suggests h3 as the alternative, which I guess is reasonable.)
Incidentally, the correct response to 22... c4+ was not 23. d4, which allows the c pawn to come to sit on b2, where it annoyed us for a long period of the middle and late game, but to offer a trade of queens with Qf2.
This actually was a pretty common thread, where the weak moves would be made in very positional situations, and would be followed by an unwillingness to offer trades. This is actually pretty interesting, because some of the best play from the collective was during tactical positions (Aside from move 24 where we exchanged a rook for a bishop instead of recognizing that the b2 pawn promoting was not actually a threat yet and capturing the f8 rook instead), but the collective's votes also tried to get us into much more cautious and strategic positions, occasionally to our detriment.
This implies that a more tactical opening is actually desirable, perhaps the scotch game or a king's indian attack, rather than the weird hybrid italian-scotch opening we ended up with. However, that might be too risky, as a single mistake in a tactical situation could be devastating.
Overall, the period from move 20-24 was the most damaging to our game, but the overall decline was pretty slow. The position wasn't basically-unwinnable until move 37. d4, which would eventually break our kingside pawn structure.
At the time of resignation, there was a forced checkmate. With fairly accurate play, we'd have been checkmated on the 8th rank by two queens promoted from the h and g pawns. It might have looked something like this.
Thus it goes. And remember, you can send questions to the ask box if you'd like! Also, Anarchist Chess will probably return for a second game (though probably not this month.)
