Last week I have played my first OTB tournament since last year. I would like to present you my games with some thoughts.

Round 1

The tournament is a swiss 250 player tournament, no rating caps. This means the first round has few surprises, rating differences are usually 600+. For me this meant my fastest mate with the black pieces:

1200-Uitje

1. e4 c5 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 Nf6 4. f3 d5 5. exd5 Qxd5 6. cxd4 Nc6 7. Nge2 Bf5 8. Nbc3 Qa5 9. Bd2 Nb4 10. Rc1 Nd3#



Replay

He made a couple elementary opening mistakes and allowed me to develop my pieces to good squares, leading to this neat mate. Not really an interesting game strategically, but hopefully a nice teaser for the rest of the games!

Objectively speaking, not playing 4.-dxc3 must be really bad. 4.-d5 5.e5 would give him a normal equalish position while dxc3 would just give him a bad Morra with f3 played.

A bit off topic, but I gotta say that hadn't I been mated in a very similar way when I was ~8 years old I would have never become a serious chess player in a first place. I was white, my K on e1 was blocked by bishop on f1, Q on d1 and N on d2, but I still had the e2 pawn.. He pinned it with Qe7 and I missed the Nd3 mate next move. I felt so embarassed and angry that I started training as hard as I could and promised to myself that it will never happen again so maybe you just jump started that guys career this way!

Round 2

Round 2 started sunday morning. This was the only day we had two rounds and was looking out to be a tough day, the beds in our apartment weren't what we hoped for. Luckily the first round of the day only took the full 5 hours (40 moves in 2 hours + 30 min)...

Onto the game, I was paired against an FM rated 2200 and played the following game:

Uitje - 2200 FM

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Na5 6. Bb5+ c6 7. dxc6 bxc6 8. Qf3



This is the line I usually play against the two knights defense. After this game I realised that I don't really like the way I play this line that much and will have to reevaluate this system.

8. ... Be7 9. Bd3 h6 10. Ne4 O-O 11. Nxf6+ Bxf6 12. Nc3 Rb8



I think black has excellent compensation for the pawn here, black is playing for f5 after which my position will be cramped.

13. b3 Rb4 14. Ne4 Be7 15. a3 Rd4 16. Bb2 f5



So black decided to get his f5 in, the next few moves are practically forced for black, I had the option to play 18. c3 instead of castling, but that seemed inferior to me.

17. Bxd4 Qxd4 18. O-O fxe4 19. Qxe4 Qxe4 20. Bxe4 Bd7



So this is the resulting endgame, white has a rook and two pawns for a bishop and a knight. Black has 3 isolated pawns, but they are easily defended. My plan should be to advance my queenside pawns to try and create an advanced pawn there and create files for my rook to operate on. I thought I would be better here as my position doesn't really have any weaknesses and my material advantage should prove to be enough for at least a draw. However, my pieces are inactive and it's very hard to actually activate them without creating weaknesses. In the game I wasted alot of time with ill advised moves with my rook, but I don't really see how white can make much progress here.

21. Rfe1 Bf6 22. d3 Nb7 23. b4 Nd6 24. Rab1 Nxe4 25. Rxe4 g5 26. h3 h5 27. Kf1 Kg7 28. Ke2 Kg6 29. f3 h4 30. Rc4 a6 31. Rc5 Re8 32. Rc4 Bd8 33. Kd2 Bb6 34. Re4 Bf5 35. Re2 Bc7 36. Rb3 Be6



We're both running short on time when this position is on the board. I wanted to make progress here so I played c4, after which d3 needs alot of attention.

37. c4 Rd8 38. Kc2 Kf6 39. a4 Bb6 40. b5 cxb5 41. axb5 a5 42. Ra3 Bf5 43. Rd2 Rc8 44. Kd1 Ke6 45. Ke2 Kd6 46. Ra4 Kc5 47. Ke3 Rd8
48. Rd1 Bc7 49. Rd2 Kb6 50. Ke2 Rd4 51. Ra1 Bd6 52. Rad1 a4 53. Rb2 Bc5 54. Rc2 Rd8 55. Rc3 Bb4 56. Rc2 a3 57. Ra2 Kc5 58. Rc2 Ra8 59. Ra2 0-1

Replay

An interesting game of which I have learned a lot, the main lesson being the evaluation of the position at the start of the endgame. Any comments on the presentation are welcomed and ofcourse any questions or remarks about the game as well.

I've got no comments at the moment, but I want you to know that I do enjoy the games and your thoughts, so keep it coming.

I feel you can't really be much worse in the final diagram, or at least slightly before; this material balance is normally good for Black (right?) but if you make it tough for him to open the position, when it does happen he will have problems with his weaknesses.

unfortunately it looks like you can't play Rc3, because after Bd5 he has Bb6-d4, and if 38. d4 e4 and the c7-bishop really comes to life on f4 or somewhere.

the more I look at it, though, the more problematic everything is.

I don't understand why you didn't save your Knight once black played F5.

After moving the knight, black can play e4, which looks worse for white than the game.

ohhhhh thanks. i see that now