Afanasiev, Nikita – Boiarintsev, Vitaly

2569 2022 · White wins (resignation, time or agreement)

Englund Gambit, 2022: Afanasiev (2569) against Boiarintsev (2252). Black gives back the e5 pawn early with 5...f6 and 6...Qxf6, then castles queenside on move nine, giving the game a sharp, committal shape. The engine flags no turning point at all — no single move swings the evaluation. What decides it is consistency: 96% of White’s moves rated good or better, against 83% for Black. Afanasiev pushes d5, takes on c6 with the knight, and the position never comes back. The takeaway: when there is no one blunder to point at, it is the steady drip of inaccuracies that loses the game.