End game - degrees of failure

I confess, I've played too much low quality blitz. Games where you're ahead in material and time and can just hop about chasing pieces rather than forcing the mate. It's a bad habit to have picked up and the last two games in the tournament have showed it off in strong contrast.

It's not nice viewing from move 30, and to give my opponent his due when the opportunity came his way he took it quickly and ruthlessly. If only I'd done the same.

I started well with winning the exchange around move 6/7 which opened uo the same diagonal as a fianchettoed bishop could attack. This meant I could go through the pawns and take a rook for a bishop (move 9). The trouble is I never had a plan of how to end the game. I think I'm going to play this one through a few times against the computer (both white and black) to see what I can learn.

It's not all doom, gloom and the burning red cheeks of embarrasment though. I currently have the biggest upset in the tournament and that's a win that made me happy. At least until the computer saw me losing a checkmate sequence multiple times, and at a point when I was still looking to extend a material advantage rather than en d the game.

Thisgame was even all the way through, and according to the super computer of chess genius the game was filled with smaller errors. The key move came, to me, came at 25 when I managed to fork a bishop and pawn in such a manner that I was sure to come out ahead on the exchange.

I'm pleased with the result, especially giving up nearly 200 ranking points. I'm a bit worried it took me 4 turns to see the sequence I eventually won with.