Two Devastating Defeats

Ok, tourney's over, and I have a little more free time and energy to fill you in on what happened. I already showed two of my best played games, lest you get the idea that I only want to gloat, and not to face the bad things that happen to me, here are the two games I lost this tournament, both of which were quite devastating.

In this first one, I had the impression that I never had a chance all game, that I was dominated without understanding why from the very beginning. This game left me in the fouler mood of the two games:

This second one, I just played two hours ago. It was very complicated and interesting. Objectively, I had some chances in the game, but I really was not using the right attitude; and there are three main errors I made: 1) not using enough time on an important decision 2) wasting way too much time on the next move once I realized things were not that easy. When you recognize an error, sometimes you have to accept it and find something borderline playable and keep going. If you put yourself under 10 minutes on the clock before move 20, you won't be able to take advantage of any opportunities that come your way later. 3) being overconfident when the opponent did not play the very best lines.

I had not expected to have many chances to win this game with black, and I really wanted to win the game to make [what I considered] a "good score" of 7/9. So when the position got lively and I realized that it was possible to win, my desires impeded my judgment.

I'll learn some more chess lessons later also, by analyzing the games more deeply.