Welcome to the fun world of the Albin Countergambit! I wonder in that second diagram if you can just play Qxg5 instead of Be6. The point is that after f4 you have Bc5 and then Qe4 Qe7 (or maybe Qf5) fxe5 00 looks OK for black.
Thank you! :) Yeah, that's definitely a better line than the mess I had after Be6. I've seen this idea of Bc5, but *only* when my Queen was on f5 (and his Queen on d4), and there it didn't work because of Qd8#. I think I only considered it with the Queen on f5, because then I could see a direct threat of capturing on f2 with check, a strong threat!
It's instructive that I didn't apply the same idea in less forcing circumstances, even though it was still good!
Welcome to the fun world of the Albin Countergambit! I wonder in that second diagram if you can just play Qxg5 instead of Be6. The point is that after f4 you have Bc5 and then Qe4 Qe7 (or maybe Qf5) fxe5 00 looks OK for black.
Thank you! :) Yeah, that's definitely a better line than the mess I had after Be6. I've seen this idea of Bc5, but *only* when my Queen was on f5 (and his Queen on d4), and there it didn't work because of Qd8#. I think I only considered it with the Queen on f5, because then I could see a direct threat of capturing on f2 with check, a strong threat!
It's instructive that I didn't apply the same idea in less forcing circumstances, even though it was still good!