LICC May Open, 4th Round

(For anybody that reads my posts regularly, I apologize for the delay in the updates. I have been quite busy lately.)

The LICC May Open was an interesting tournament for me; It started with some confusion, as I took a bye in the first round but didn't realize that this meant I was committed to playing. Therefore, I had a forfeit loss in the second round, and needed to request another half point bye in the third round. With only two rounds remaining, I decided nonetheless to play and after a win and a draw I finished with 2.5/5 and won the class prize. Below is the first of the two games I played in this tourney. (The other will follow shortly).

In this game, my opponent met my 1.c3 with 1..c5, preventing me from achieving the reversed Benko or Sicilian that I enjoy playing (which I would have obtained after 1..d5 2.c4 or 1..e5 2.c4, respectively). Instead, a tense struggle followed, which I have lightly annotated.

I welcome any comments; I'm proud of this win, but I'd like to know where I missed opportunities to play better and when my opponent missed defensive resources.