My Best Draw Ever, MCE Part 2

Hello again. In this blog, I explain the best game I've played that resulted in a draw. Before I continue, MCE stands for "My Chess Experience." Also, this is a slight edit from my original blog (https://lichess.org/@/Flbbss2020/blog/my-best-draw-ever-mce-part-2/Velwz6Y0 )

https://lichess.org/HKaoNloW/white#82

Initial Thoughts
Once again, I was white, but that only gives a slight advantage at the level that I play. I remember joining the tournament and anxiously waiting for the pairings, as I did not want to be paired against an opponent that was hundreds of rating points above me. This had happened before and it happened again this time. Typically, I would freak out and lose extremally fast. However, on this occasion, I decided not to worry about what the outcome would be and to focus slowly on playing as well as I could. There was an increment of 3 seconds, which inspired confidence. At this point, I was still very nervous and had completely forgotten about the caffeine that was coursing through by bloodstream by this point. At any rate, this is one of the best games I've played in a while, and my opponent was a worthy adversary who kept me on edge the entire time. Before you read my analysis, I suggest you look through the game in its entirety first.

Opening Analysis
I'll stick to Stockfish's definition of the opening by analyzing the first 10 moves. When it comes to openings, this one is not particularly interesting or exciting. And by the end of it, I was still unsure of my abilities to even have a slight chance of not dying. With white, I played d4, and they responded in kind with Nf6. I've seen this before, so I wasn't too worried. They fianchettoed their kingside bishop and I achieved a pawn trio in the center, which is not unusual for this opening. When I played e4, I was reminded about the games in which Bobby Fischer had played as black and won with ease, despite white having the center. On move 4, was I expecting e6, like Bobby would sometimes play in that position, but instead black played d6, which took me a little off guard. I immediately started thinking about a d5 advance, but held it off for development, as I knew I shouldn't be greedy in this opening. Some moves later and we get to this position:

I started thinking about playing d5, but realized that I could take c5. However, the open d-file daunted me a little, and since my rooks weren't connected yet, I decided against it. A few seconds before playing d5, I thought about e5, but the complex possibility of h6 dissuaded me. Also, Stockfish is showing me cxd4, which would have been horrible for me to deal with (I didn't even see it). Besides, black would probably just diffuse the threat to the king knight (7.e5 cxd4 8.Qxd4 Nc6 9.Qe3 dxe5) and take the e5 pawn, and white's center would be obliterated. D5 was very safe and I'm glad I was able to find it. At any rate, black forced me to move my bishop with h6 and I took the knight. I sat there for about 30 seconds deciding on whether I should move my bishop to f4 or keep pressure on the knight with Bh6. The possible retaliation of g5 persuaded me otherwise, even though the over-extended pawns would have been a weakness for black. Besides, black's king knight was exerting pressuring on my center pawns, and their kingside bishop was on dark squares, as opposed to my light-squared center pawns. Although, Stockfish considers the move an inaccuracy, and it might be due to losing the bishop pair. I moved my other (pretty bad) bishop to e2 in order to castle. Black targeted my king knight with Bg4, and after a while, I maneuvered my knight to d2 to get this position:
 

Stockfish sees this position as the transition from opening to middlegame, which I couldn't agree with more. I remaneuvered a knight in a constructive way so as to allow the f pawn to advance in the future while throwing a punch at black's good bishop with my bad one. Also, if I ever wanted to, I could move my knight further into the queenside or back to the kingside. If I didn't, it protected the c and e pawn very well. These long term strategies and ideas don't feel like what the opening's about, and all of my remaining minor pieces were developed.

Middlegame Analysis
Instead of screaming at me like an abusive spouse in the last blog, Stockfish murmurs about how I lost a slight advantage through a series of small inaccuracies while my opponent kept equalizing. Anyways, black develops their last minor piece with Na6, which Stockfish deems an inaccuracy, but I didn't see it as such at the time.

In this position, I would ultimately play a3, which seems like a straightforward choice. It stops their queen knight from landing on b4, which would be a good pivot square. However, I was really afraid of the bishop's pressured on the c3 knight. I thought that I might have to move the b pawn in order to protect the c4 pawn. I saw my c4 pawn as a potential sore point to a b5 advance. Maybe, I thought, black would prep it with Rb8 or even Qa5. I saw c4 as invaluable for my center control, but I couldn't defend it with b3 since it was the only piece that was defending my knight. I considered Qe3 for a bit. It would attack black's undefended h6 pawn and defend the knight on c3. However, the c4 pawn would be even weaker than ever. Also, the threat of Nb4 and then a fork on c2 kept me on edge. And then suddenly I realized that I could play a3. It would negate the knight and secure my queenside a lot more. I also started thinking about just taking on b5 if it came, because even if the rook was on b8, black would have to rearrange some more pieces in order to recapture. What sealed the deal was a possible Rc1, which would protect the knight. Playing a3 took me two or so minutes to do, which is embarrassing in retrospect. I think the caffeine demons were starting to take effect. Interestingly enough, black immediately played Nc7. I castled 0-0 and they played Rb8; black was preparing for a queenside attack. I decided that my queenside was safe and to push on the king side with f4. And then black did a move that confused me, as I wasn't expecting it and I didn't understand the motive. Bd4+ forced my king into the corner, and I was very well placed, but other than that, I do know what significance it had. And then they just took my c3 knight. They swapped a powerful center bishop with a semi-decent queenside knight. The whole thing was confusing. My pawns were doubled now, sure, but if black ever wanted to have a pawn on b4, that was out the window now. It also gave my a semi-open file for my queen rook, and after black's b5, that's where I put it. Although, Stockfish considered Rab1 an inaccuracy, suggesting that I continue with a kingside attack with f5. This is the first of three consecutive inaccuracies which causes the evaluation to go from +1.0-ish to 0.0 flat. But I think that Rab1 is a more humanly viable move, as f5 could be met with gxf5 and then white would have to respond with exf5, and playing with a fragmented center like that is hard (for me at least). With black's Qd7, I played Rb3 in anticipation of a potential Qa4. Black takes on c4, and I recaptured with my queen as I couldn't with the knight, for it protected the rook. They captured on b3 and I recaptured with the queen once more, for it prevented black from playing Rb8, and then I could double with Rb1. They proposed a queen exchange which resulted in this position:

This is the point at which I was the most nervous. I was unable to concentrate for a while, which led to me taking over a whole minute to make the next move. I, of course, considered capturing their queen, but that would lead to their knight threatening both my a and c pawns, which would mean losing at least one of them. I couldn't let the queen land on d3 and completely ruin my position and piece coordination. I couldn't move my knight to c4 and let my queen hang. The only move that kept it a draw (according to Stockfish) was c4 itself, and I'm glad I played it. Both me and Stockfish see this as the end of the of the middlegame and the beginning of the endgame.

Endgame Analysis
Needless to say, they were happy to capture my queen and I recaptured. They threatened the knight with an unsurprising Rb8. I chose not to let their rook dominate the open file by moving my knight, so I instead defended with Rf3. Rb1 would have pinned the knight to the rook. They remaneuvered their knight so it attacked my c4 pawn, and now since their rook was temporarily blocked, I threatened to fork two pawns and their rook with Na5, which eyed the c6 square. If the rook went to b7 and defended the two pawns while evading capture, it would have the responsibility of protecting them while my knight stayed on c6 impervious. They brought their king closer to the center and defended the e7 pawn. For some reason, I didn't play Nc6 despite setting it up and instead "pinned" their knight to their rook, getting this position:
 
I put quotation marks around the word pinned because all black had to do was move their knight to d7 and defend the rook. I honestly did not see this, and was probably (I don't exactly remember) poised to only then move my knight into c6 and push my a pawn. Oh well, I guess. I decided that my king needed to be closer to the center as well and played Kg2. We traded rooks and my knight was now on b3. They then threatened the c4 pawn again. In order to defend it, I played Nd2. I chose d2 over a5 because I reasoned that their king could scare it off by eventually getting to the queenside. Anyways, I advanced my king up the kingside, and they seemed to confirm my fears by playing Ke8. However, after I played f5 (finally), they seemed to change their mind also decided to focus on the kingside. We made some more pawn moves to get this position:

This position is critical, since a single mistake form either side could make or break the game. Interestingly enough, we both made what Stockfish considers a "mistake." Although I would consider them both to be blunders and the only ones we made in the entire game. After my h4 move, they played Kg7, which on the surface seems fine. However, it allows white to play a move that would eventually win the game. The real pain for me is that I considered it, but thought it was a bad move. The move is fxg6, which forces the king to retake of g6. The move after that is g4, which forces black to play one of two moves. One move is Kh6, an idling move. Then gxh5 and Kxh5 follows. What I didn't initially like about this variation was that they would capture my passed h pawn. But what I should have realized that after they did that, I could play pac-man with my king by going to f5 and e6 and then simply making more passed pawns. The second move, instead of Kh6, hxg4, results in the same thing. Unfortunately, instead of playing fxg6 after their Kg7, I played g4. This allows them to play g5+, and unless I wanted to king to advance further, I had to play hxg5 and they played fxg5+. I took g5 with the king and they took g4 and I had to retake with Kxg4. All of this allowed black to place their king on f6. And after playing Kf4 to offset black's king, they put me in a sort of zugzwang by playing a6. Moving the knight was not an option, and playing a4 wasn't either. I could only play Ke3 and did. They played Ke5 to get this position:

I couldn't move the king, for I had to keep their king from infiltrating my position, and I couldn't move my pawns or knight. Another zugzwang I thought. However, there is one move that I was able to spot so that I wouldn't die. Nf3+ forces the king to back up to f6, but after that, the knight must return to d2 to defend the c4. They went back to e5. Black potenitally playing Kg5 to try to infiltrate by another way doesn't work, as Nf3+ still does the job. It was at this point that I realized that I might not lose. I clicked the draw offer button and awaited my opponent's response. I was low on time compared to them, so there was a chance that they would decline the offer and beat me on time. But to my surprise, they accepted the offer and the game was over. I had somehow survived. Before I move on, I want to point out an amusing hypothetical checkmate that could have happened, but the probability of them falling for it is slim. If white had played f6 in the above position and if black had responded with exf6, then Nf3 would come as a checkmate.

Conclusion
When I started this whole blog thing about a week ago, I assumed that it would take a while to have an interesting game to write about. Amazingly, it only took a few days for this game to be played. Once again, I want to emphasize how well my opponent played. Despite having caffeine demons on my side, I couldn't even get too much of an advantage without slipping up. We both had an accuracy of 93%, which is simply insane. When the game was finished, I almost felt like a professional, but trust when I say I'm not. This level of performance against someone who is so much better than me is rare. This is why my rating is not too high, but maybe over time it'll improve. I had a good writing this. Thanks for reading!