Day eight at TATA Steel chess - facing the undefeated tournament leader

Hi all! Time to post a blog on the adventures that I'll have at TATA steel chess. I'll be playing the amateur ten camp - ten days and 9 rounds of intense chess right next to the pro players. This will be day one of my blog and I will stream the analysis of my games every day. So sit back, relax and enjoy the content!

Make sure to follow me on my twitch channel where I will live stream the analysis of my games and tell you all the on site chess gossips! https://www.twitch.tv/bikfoot

• Part one: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-one-at-tata-steel-chess-not-off-to-a-great-start
• Part two: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-two-at-tata-steel-chess-the-best-defense-is-good-offense
• Part three: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-three-at-tata-steel-chess-bishops-rule
• Part four: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-four-at-tata-steel-chess-why-didnt-i-just-take-the-draw-offer
• Part five: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-five-at-tata-steel-chess-my-opponent-played-what
• Part six: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-six-at-tata-steel-chess-i-had-to-fight-really-hard-to-draw-this
• Part seven: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/day-seven-at-tata-steel-chess-twenty-minutes-too-late
• Final part: https://www.chess.com/blog/Bikfoot/final-day-at-tata-steel-chess-i-won-my-tournament

Today I was facing the undefeated leader with the white pieces. Marcel Tillemans, with a rating of 1841. At the moment he had a score of 5.5/7 with three draws and I had a score of 4.5/7, being placed second. In other words, I really had to win this won!

Since I didn't sleep really well the night before, I stayed in bed all morning, skipping breakfast. Instead, I went to the store a bit earlier, got some breakfast there and rushed to the playing hall. Let the games begin!

The game

With the white pieces, I got into the Catalan opening which I've had on the board many times this tournament. In other words, I was really positive about the opening, especially since he followed a line that I know pretty well. A few moves in, the following position occurred:

Position after 9... b6

A fairly standard Catalan here. White's idea is to play 10. Nd2 and push the e pawn to e4. This did happen in the game and a few moves later, where we shuffled our pieces a bit, we ended up with the following position:

Position after 16... a5

Now, the game stagnated a bit and both players were feeling each other out, looking where to push. I had a very solid position here and my idea was to reroute the bishop on b2 - c1 - f4 to start pushing e5. What happend was a series of very accurate moves, let's see what they were!

Coming into this position, I actually have a few tricks up my sleeve! What does white play here to gain an advantage?

And so the journey began, trying my best to grind out a win since there are always backrank mates possible and other tricks. We played a bunch of move and I managed, through accurate play, to win the pawn on h7. The position was like this at that point:

Position after 46... Kc6

Now, what's my idea here as white to win? Let's summarize it:

• Win pawn on g6
• Protect my king from perpetuals from back's queen
• Advance the h pawn and promote it to a queen

Sounds doable right? Let's do it! A lot of moves have been played, so I'll show you how a did it with some comments here and there.

And that's the game! The undefeated tournament leader has finally been taken down. This does, however, provide an interesting standing for my group. Let's review:

The current standings in my group

Tomorrow I will play Jan Nagel who is also tied for first place, along with Marcel Tillemans and Alex Albrecht. Fortunately, I already defeated Marcel and Alex, so is a win tomorrow enough to clench the first place? We'll see!

As always, the full game can be found below. Enjoy!

Follow me on my socials. No seriously, follow, let's keep in touch!

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BikfootNL
  
• Discord: https://discord.gg/hQeCbeJ
• Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/bikfoot