May Quad Night #1: Improvement and Success

This was my first quad night since March 31st. There were a lot of factors. Only Chace and Mr. James were there, basically my only two rating opportunities. It would be hard to win today, knowing that Chace had improved by a lot. Let's get started.

May 5th Quad Night. Time control: 25+5

Round 1: Juelz Segundo: (1226) (Black)

Juelz is a feared opponent at the lower level. Everyone is saying he is dangerous, so I was a bit nervous going in, but I knew I had to get the job done. It was a standard Queens Gambit. I responded with the Semi-Slav, a strong opening to play against it. We developed all of our pieces and castled.

At one point, he made a mistake, pushing his a-pawn trying to attack my queenside.

If you found Bxh3, you are correct. He eventually took the bishop and we reached this position where he resigned 

It gave me my first win of the night. Now it's time to face my quad night nemesis. Result (0-1)

Round 2: Chace Nguyen: (1739) (White)

I started with d4, and then continued with basically the Jobava London. I castled queenside where we reached this position.  I thought I might have a slight advantage here, but I'm not sure. We traded queens and my knight got traded off for one of his bishops. Soon, he could've took one of my pawns, but he didn't see it. That would have won him the game. We went to a same-colored bishop endgame where it ended up being a draw, as we were stuck in a stalemate. 

Now this round was the most pivotal one. It really mattered who we got paired against. I would either get Mr. James or Larry. I got what I wanted. Result: (0.5-0.5)

Round 3: Mr. James Brandmair (1589) (Black)

Beating Mr. James here would be great, but no easy task at all. I surprised him with my Caro-Kann, to which he had visible shock on his face. He soon got a passed c-pawn which would cause me a lot of trouble. Luckily, I had a chance to get rid of it with a tactic. 

If you found Nxd4, Nxd4, e5, Be3, exd4, Bxd4, Bxd4, Qxd4, Rxe1+, Rxe1, Rxc6, you would have predicted how the game went for the next few moves. Soon I put pressure on his king, but he had a passed a-pawn I had to stop, but he ended up flagging, and that's how I won. Result: (0-1)

Just like that, I had gained back almost all the rating I had lost once  before. Not even close to all, but it is closer to 1700 now. 

Bye guys.