My First FIDE Rated Classical Time Control Tournament!

In the past few months I was checking Slovenian Chess Federation website and noticed there's a FIDE rated Tournament in Ljubljana, with classical time control, 90 minutes for 40 moves and additional 30 minutes for the rest. Also with a Fischer time of 30 seconds, starting on move 1. 

I saw it's taking place from March to May, one round per week. I messaged the TD and he confirmed it, saying that in case of illness and some other necessary event, the games can be postponed to another date. It suited me perfectly and I joined! 

Now, I'll just quickly analyse all my games, some of them were pretty interesting. My goal before the tournament was 5.5/9, I scored (+6-3=0), so I was even more satisfied with my result. There's always a room for improvement though.

Since the blog contains 9 games, you may want to go just through some of them. I will list a round, colour & opening, so you can easily decide which games to take a look at.
The highlighted one are a MUST one.  

1. (b) Queen's pawn game
2. (w) Ruy Lopez, Cordel defence
3. (b) Italian game, two knights defence
4. (w) Scandinavian defence
5. (w) French defence, Burn variation
6. (b) Sicilian, Alapin's variation (3...Qxd5)
7. (w) Sicilian, Nimzovich-Rossolimo attack (3...d6)
8. (b) Queen's pawn, Colle system
9. (w) Reti -> English, Anglo-Grünfeld defence

Perfect beginning. Now finally first game with white pieces! Against a 9-year old girl. It would be terrible if I lost, so I had to be careful.

2/2! Here I actually shared the first, taking into the account all the tie-breaks. The next game was very important for me. A player almost as old as me, also a chess.com member. I found him on chess.com accidentally, studied his games and made a great opening preparation, recieving a help from my second. Did not go as expected, but at least scored another win, ending the game past 10 pm in the evening.

3/3, couldn't be better. Didn't even sense I could go 3/6 after such a good start. 

A bad quality, bad moves. I quickly wanted to forget the game and put focus on my next game. I was playing a top woman in the tournament, also seed #3, so it was quite a challenge for me. It's like being Hammer playing against Carlsen. 

I lost again, but the game itself was not that bad. Though, didn't win like Hammer did, but at least put some pressure on after the successful opening preparation, again. In the sixth round, I faced another youngster. #3 in Slovenia in U12 section. And stupidly lost another game. Still cannot believe how that happened in a classical time control. 

It was time to strike back. Another Sicilian, now as white. Played a nice endgame, being a pawn up and converting the game to my 4th point.

You always have to be lucky at one point. Resignation = The Blunder. https://youtu.be/7cGevJArvoM
(I was Akopian, opponent was Meier and his father was Petrosian).

And the final game. With a grand sacrifice, something I always wanted to do. I played it once in an OTB blitz game against NewArdweaden, misplayed it and lost. This time I was prepared and amazed my opponent (literally, he told me that after the game). 

So, 6/9, (+6-3=0 yeah, I expected more draws), 10th out of 48 participants. Not a bad result at all. Though, I only scored 4/7 against rated opponent (for my FIDE rating) and because of their slightly strange starting system, my official rating will only be around 1550. Next year, another chance, eyeing the top places. 

-MSC157

If you have any question or comments about the games or about the tournament ("FIDE SLO Spring 2015"), feel free to ask and comment below. :)