My chess tournament- Part 12

Hi everyone! I recently finished the last round of a tournament 11 days ago. It started in the middle of august, and with one game per week every Tuesday it ended on October 1.

The tournament was quite fun, but towards the end, once school started, I just wanted to finish it off.  

The first round started quite badly... I got a horrible position against someone considerably weak in strength, and eventually lost the game. Believe me, I am not as bad as I seem in this game:

So yeah, my position out of the opening was beyond repair. Note that I wanted to resign by move 10 but that would be embarassing. I have 0.0/1.

So, I went on my trip to Toronto (See part 10), so I took a bye for the next round (0.5/2). 

In round 3 I played someone who just came out of provisional. He blundered a piece and I won quite easily. Since I lost round 1 I was doomed to weak players for many of the rounds to come. Here's the game:

Not much to comment on there. I got m first win, with 1.5/3.

My school started the day before I played the next round, so I wasn't really keen on getting a good result. I just wanted to finish it off as early as possible. That didn't mean I would lose or draw on purpose, though.

The game started as a transposed Caro-Kann where I wasn't patient and got a losing position. Miraculously, I decided to offer a draw, which my opponent accepted. Here's the game:

Yeah, so my play wasn't the greatest, but I escaped with a draw against quite a high rated player. I have 2.0/4.

Then, that weekend I played in another tournament (My chess tournament- part 11).

The next week I played another person, another person just out of provisional. He developed awkwardly, and then lost an exchange. I then converted from there by winning even more material with tactics. Here's the game:

That was another easy game. I now have 3.0/5.

Since I had lots of homework and tests I decided to skip round 6, so I initially got a forfeit but later got a bye. I now have 3.0/6.

The next week I got a player who decided to be too aggressive in the opening, and after we castled on opposite sides it was my turn to be aggressive. My pawns came with threats and I broke through. There were only 24 moves. Here's the game:

Not much effort I needed to put in there. Just some thinking in how to deal with white's aggressive approach. It's kind of weird to play the passive 5. d3 then suddenly play 8. g4 hoping for a kingside attack. It doesn't really work together. I have 4.0/7. A pretty good score considering that round 1 was my only loss.

Finally! The opposition is getting closer and closer to my rating of 1978. I play an opponent who is less than 100 points below my rating. He gave a pretty good fight. He had a material advantage but let my pieces become too strong. We were under mutual time pressure trying to make time control before move 30. Under pressure, I blundered  a piece. But it just took one move by him to lose the game. My opponent was shaking his head in disgust after the game. Here's the game:

The last game I finally played someone closer to my level than any of my other opponents. My opponent got a slight advantage and it was basically the same until the end, until I found myself down to 1 minute. Then I made a losing move. I certainly had chances for a draw, but never for a win. Here's the game:

So, I saved my rating a bit- it went down from 1978-1974. I finished with a decent score of 5.5/9 and 15th place.

There won't be another tournament for me in at least another month, though. 

Hope you had fun reading!

From's gambit with Nf6-Ng5 is more subtle and more sound probably. It's a variation championed by Mestel. You should consider it. I've won a couple of otb games with it already against decent opponents.

I know it's more sound but what's the point of playing a gambit and playing soundly?

Yes, I am working on that.

Froms gambit gives black all the chances to fight for the win