My Eighth Chess Tournament, Game 3 (Sweet Sicilian Revenge)

The opponent that I played against this game was the very last person to beat me in an otb game. This time around, though, I got my revenge against him and won. This means that I have won my last four games in the middle section (1100-1800 rated), and have started this month's tournament with a perfect score of 3 out of a possible 3 points. This is a new record for me in the middle section. I hadn't had this much success since I was in the lower section.

In this game my opponent chose to play the Kalashnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defense. I was not too familiar with all of the theory in this line, but knowing the first several moves helped me to get a good position out of the opening. Unlike my previous game against this opponent, I kept my king safe the entire game and did not allow him to get an easy mating attack or any sort of counterplay. After some complicated tactics in the middlegame I reached an endgame where I was up three pawns and nearly all of my opponent's pieces were paralyzed. My opponent was practically in zugzwang and ended up losing a piece right before he chose to resign. Here is the game: