unluky, but he had a defence of the mate in one with knight g2 anyway!

g1 sorry

Yeah, I see the Ng1 now. Of course it turned out not to matter, anyway. I think missing his mate attack on me and missing his simple Ng1 defense shows I still have a long way to go towards even becoming an intermediate chess player. At least I'm enjoying the games even when I lose.

As they say 'never miss a check it might be mate!' as it was in this case. Generally it's better to develop all your pieces and get the king to safety before undertaking an attack unless it is absolutely forcing. I thought g6 was very weakening. I know if you played OO that your opponent had Bh6 threatening mate in one but you then had Bf6 stopping the mate. I would need to look at it but it's maybe not so scary and I don't know how the knight could come into the attack. I think I'll make a short vid to analyse. This would be a pretty obvious plan for white. Your Q could also come into the defence with counter threats. It's important to keep cool. It's said that mate threats are like a 'will oh the whisp' when you play forcing lines to try to get the mate it doesn't materialise or your opponent finds a defence. On the other hand when you play developing moves and place your pieces to good squares mate threats materialise almost by themselves!