My Game Analysis IHSA Team Round 5

So in my attempt to write a blog that resembles those of Silman's as much as possible, here I present to you my round 5 game from the 2014 IHSA State Chess Tournament. 

Leading up to this game, I was having a pretty bad tournament. The first round game that I played is the first, and hopefully the last, game that I will ever drop a queen, rook, and a bishop in. Therefore, I got obliterated by an opponent that I was much better than. So after that disturbing experience, in round 2, my hedgehog was slowly crushed by my opponent. However, he happened to hang a knight when I had a completely lost middlegame leading to my victory.

So after those two demoralizing rounds, in round 3, I played an opponent that was far inferior to my opponent in the first two rounds. As a result, I had the following "masterpiece" (not really).

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.Qc2 d5 5.Nf3 O-O

It's typically a bad sign when it's move 6 and you already have no idea what you're doing.

6.e3 b6 7.Be2 dxc4 8.Bxc4 Bb7 9.Be2

At this point, I realized that his Bb7 was quite strong and that there was really no way to dislodge it (oops). However, it is actually quite a common theme in openings like this and is no need for worry yet. 

9... Nbd7 10.O-O Bxc3 11.bxc3 Ne4 (diagram)

Bxc3 caught me by surprise as it just surrenders his two bishops in control for the e4 square. The problem that I saw with this was that I could easily dislodge his knight from the e4 square while in the future, my bishops have the chance to wreak havoc in the now open position. 

 

12.Ba3 c5 13.Rfd1 Qc7 14.Bd3 Ndf6 15.Ne5 cxd4! 16.Bxf8?!

When I played the move Ne5, I had forseen the exchange sac that would come when he played cxd4. Even though I knew that he would likely have the better position after I took  the exchange sac, the materialist part of me looked at it and couldn't resist. 

16...Qxe5?

Likely throws his entire advantage away. Let's see if you can try and find what he should've done.