Sants Open

Intro:

In this blog I will analyze my games giving the lines I calculated, my way of preparing and my thoughts about the games. After every round being analyzed I will explain the final result and what I have learnt. I hope you enjoy it and that it helps you improve!

Round 1: Surprised 

In this start of the tournament, I was nervous but confident because I had great results in a previous tournament, I was coming back from vacation so I couldn't do a lot of prep for the game and either way it wouldn't have mattered because my opponent surprised me with 1...a6 after 1.e4. After that I just decided to play principled and played 2.d4 and my opponent played 2...c6 like a CaroKann but with a tempo less and I just played normal CaroKann theory there was a moment in which I should have played the really reasonable 5.h3  but for me it seemed that black could play 5...BxN and after 6.QxB I wasn't better anymore because of 6...dxe4 and after 7.Nxe4 I was losing a pawn and if 7.Qxe4 7...Nf6 and even though I was fine I wasn't better which I should be due to the opening so I decided to play 5.Be2 . After looking at it with the engine I realized that I am  better after 7.Nxe4 because after black takes there is a complex line which you can look in the game that I put below. I had another chance to emerge better in the opening with 7.e5 but I looked at it and I didn't like my position after 7...Ne4 but I was wrong and I should have played it looking at it I had great play, but in game this things are more difficult. So I played Bg5 and then black has actually equalized. 

After that I played with the plan of going with a rook lift and to attack the king , after I accomplished my plan my opponent came up with a resource I completely overlooked, he sacked the rook 20... Rxc3 and forked me back and then I had no attack, the funny thing is that it was a mistake he was better with calm moves like 20...Nd6! after the sacrifice it was rather an equal position in material but he had the activity and the play.

In move 32 he spent a lot of time and actually I was up on time for the first time in the game, and he actually misevaluated the position he calculated, he played 32...Ne8, and I have 33.Bxd5, but seeing that he had calculated so much I realized he had a plan with 33...Nf6 and after I drop back with the bishop he is attacking me with Ng4, I just played 33.Bxd5 because anything else just felt wrong, and after 33...Nf6 my blunder came I played 34.Be4 allowing the attack to be really strong if I had played 34.Bg2 it would have been fine because even if Black plays 34...Nxg4 I am fine with 35.Qg5 because the check 35...Qh2 is useless. But I played this 34.Be4 and after 34...Ng4 I played the final blunder 35.f4?? and after the simple 35...Rh3 I felt dead lost but I then I saw some pawn sacrifice to try and fork the king and the rook and decided to play some moves with 36.Rg2 and after 36...h5 I tried the resource 37.d5 completely missing the move 37...Qc5 and the game is completely over.

Round 2: Confidence Boost

After the tough start, I just wanted to recover my confidence and get a comfortable win, I got a quite good pairing to get that playing against a lower rated opponent a 1585 kid, I realized I knew the kid when I saw him I had played against him in a rapid tournament unfortunately it was of no use to know that, first because the game was starting and second because I played against him with white and now I was black. The thing is that I already knew what he played because I looked at his recent games and he played the King Gambit against e5 and a really closed set up against the Sicilian so I decided that I was going to play e5 and I revised my King Gambit file.

The thing is that it was useless in the end he played 1.b3. Some players get mad about preparing and then being useless, I am not one of them, I prefer when I can use it, but if it's not the case I just play chess. I decided to go for a Kings Indian to absolutely try to go for the win.

In move 8 I was stunned by the creativity of my opponent with this 8.Nfd2 idea to then go Bf3, it's actually not a bad plan but I just ignored it and continued to do my thing when he played 9.Bf3 I just played 9...Rb8 and I thought I was better already practically speaking because my plan is really easy and straight forward and I am the one attacking, in move 15 he collapsed completely blundering the e4 pawn and now I am clearly better not just practically, then I traded a knight and just tried to build an attack in move 20 with 20 Nd2 my opponent gives me the chance to trade queens and then win the endgame, from a practical stand point seeing that after the position complicated way too much I think the smart decision would have been to just trade queens.

My mistake was 23...Nh5 which doesn't make any sense and after 24.a4 I just got scared and moved quickly 24...Ra8 a mistake that makes the eval drop to equal, the engine says that 26...axb6 was better than 26...cxb6 but I just calculated the endgame and it didn't look good, but there were resources as you can see in the game below. Then the game continued and after a missed chance of my opponent to be better with 33.Bb2 I created a huge attack after 33.Qd3 and I went on to win the game with the collapse of my opponent.

Round 3: Preparation is Key
Sometimes you win in major part for your preparation this was the case in this game, because for this round I prepared in conscience, I looked into his games and found out that he played the Nadjorf and while trying to find a game in which someone played against him the same sideline I did I found that someone played a really interesting line against him and he didn't know how to respond and because that game was a long time ago and this guy was 70 I thought he probably hadn't looked at it with the engine so he would play badly against it again, of course I looked at the good moves for black and how to play against them just in case. My plan worked perfectly and I got a great position from the opening, at move 13 it was already a +1.5 after that I am proud to say that I found how to continue to play in that position with the move 19.a4 winning space and dominating the a file, on move 24 it seems like I am just going to win a pawn and continue to have a dominant position and my opponent  collapsed on move 25 with 25...Nxd5 after which I just win a piece with 26.BxN 26...dxB and 27.Qxe4 after 27.Qxe4 my opponent resigned so any lines that go further that are just a revision of what I calculated.

Round 4: Huge save with huge dissapointment in the end

I played this game without being able to prepare because of the lack of games of my opponent, it was good that when my opponent played his opening I remembered a preparation I did against it in a previous tournament, but I think that maybe I should have gone for Kings Indian which I have playing lately and it could have been easier for me to play.

In move 14 it was time for my first long think after my opponent played 14.b4 an annoying move that I should have met with 14...b5 a really great move that even though it weakens the c6 pawn it's not a real issue, I thought about a6 too which was the second engine move but I decide to go for a really easy move like b6 calculating in a completely wrong way that after 15.b5 I had the resource 15...c5 allowing a 16.Nxd5 sacrifice which he missed and he played 16.dxc5 which allowed me to save myself with 16...BxN but I was just missing the tactic I was seeing Nxd5 but I was just seeing Bxg6 ideas instead of the simple Be4 so I played 16...bxc5 allowing the sacrifice of course then I realized that Bxg6 was not the idea it was Be4 so I was really annoyed at myself, but I continued to play saying to myself that it was just a pawn.

In move 21 I went for a tricky idea that completely confused my opponent objectively it's stupid but it worked I played 21...a6 with the idea that after 22.bxa6 I had 22...Bxg2 which doesn't work because he doesn't have to take he just moves the rook and I am even worse than before, but my opponent told me after the game that he made a really huge miscalculation he calculated that after 22.bxa6 I had 22...Qc6 threatening mate and the rook, the thing is that he just takes the bishop and I resign. but that miscalculation maintaned me in the game because he played 22.Qb3 and after 22...axb5 23.Qxb5 23...QxQ 24.BxQ 24...Ba6 25.a4 I had a chance to equalize with 25...Rc8 it was complicated but a move I considered but dismissed because it seemed like I lost another pawn I dismissed too another line with 25...BxB 26.axB 26...Reb8 which was the second engine line instead I went for 25...c4 allowing the tactic calculating that it was not a problem and that I was getting the a pawn the thing is that I was wrong as you can see in the game.

In move 38 there is the strange move 38.Na4 which I don't know if it happened or not, because my notation is wrong so I had to find a way to reach the position I remember and that makes sense with the continuation of the notation.

The next important moment was 47.h5 which was a mistake missing that after 47...gxh5 he couldn't recapture because I had Bg6. After that my opponent continued to shuffle a bit and in move 53 he threw with 53.Ne4 blundering 53...e5 which wins an exchange and it makes the position a draw. We had been playing for 5 hours already and we were both very tired and it was a clear draw because he could just trade the e pawn for one of his pawns and there was no way for him to lose, instead of that he completely blundered on move 59 with g4 allowing me to take the f2 pawn and now the knight is really badly positioned and I am winning the really sad part is that after 60.Kg3 I offered a draw thinking it was still a draw because it was so clear before and I was tired and I didn't want to try to grind. So in the end it was kind of a "fair" result, he was winning all the game, I robbed him and then offered a draw when I was winning it was really upsetting when I saw it but round 5 was a really good consolation. 

Round 5: My most brilliant game

If you prefer a video: https://youtu.be/6MuLWKyaLLE

In this game I avoided thinking about past games and focused completely I expected a Carokann but my opponent played 1...e5, and I played the italian and in move 6 I decided to recycle a preparation I made for a previous tournament it was kind of a cheesy opening but I thought that if my opponent was unprepared it was a great decision, in the end it was a bad decision because after 9...Ne5 I was out of prep completely because when I made that cheesy preparation I only looked at 9...Bf6 in depth even though I knew 9...Ne5 was possible. So I started to think and after a 20 minute think I realized how I had to play with 10.Qe2, the thing is that he completely surprised me with 10... 0-0 and after I played 11.Qxe4 he played 11...NxBc4 which was a mistake allowing 12.Ng5! which I completely missed and I just played 12.QxNc4, a mistake too because even if I missed 12.Ng5 I could have played 12.bxB and it was nearly equal because of my activity.

Then in move 13 I had the move 13.d6 but I decided that it was too risky and I just played 13.Bf4 allowing black to consolidate, then after a few moves in move 20 I had a chance to equalize trading the rooks because I had a lot of counterplay, instead I decided to play 20.Qb4 because I wanted to pressure the b7 pawn and if Rb8 I had Nc6 ideas, my opponent played 20...Rae8, I traded 21. RxR  RxR and even though it seems like I can't take the pawn because my Knight hangs I play the brilliant move 22.Qxb7, it's funny that it isn't awarded a brilliant really because black just ignores me and it's fine, but I think it should be brilliant because it's the start of the line.

My opponent was clearly stunned and he took the Knight, but after the game he explained that he just miscalculated putting his own bishop on f6 even though it wasn't after 22...Bxd4.

Then I played the sequence 23.Rxc7!! if he takes there's backrank mate 23...Re1 the only resource to fight 24.Kh2 Qa5 25.Qb4!! Qe8 26.Qxe1 and I am completely winning.

So the lesson I take from here is to avoid playing this kind of opening without having prepared enough, but that this type of things are completely playable at 1800 FIDE level, because one pawn doesn't decide the game at all, I also take from this game that I need to always be tactically aware.

Round 6: Missed chances

For this game I wanted to prepare and so I looked at his games and knew he played the Evans Gambit and I prepared it, it was kind of a rushed preparation a thing that came to bite me later on. I decided to play e5 and that was the reason why the preparation was rushed because I have been playing sicilian lately but I decided to mix it up in this tournament, probably a mistake to go into the Evans instead of my sicilian prep. When the rushed preparation came to bite me was in move 8 when I played 8...Nh6 mixing up another line with this even though for me it made more sense 8...Bb6 which is the best move, I played 9...Nh6 because I saw ghosts and I remembered wrong. But well it wasn't that huge of a mistake I only lost the little edge black gets in the Evans.

The great thing I had was a huge time advantage and in move 19 it paid off and my opponent blundered an idea I saw earlier with 19.N4f3 blundering 19...Be2 which I saw in other lines but in this position I missed it completely I played 19...Rfb8 which isn't a bad move and after 20.Qc2 I still had the great 20...Be2! but I missed it again playing 20...Nc4 allowing 21.Nb3 and now I'm worse but he offered me a draw but because I was better earlier and I had the time advantage I refused to make the mature decision assuming I lost the advantage and I played on and I was dead lost in a few moves. My worse blunder was 26...Qf4 a completely ilogical move that throws the game completely I was a bit worse but was holdable with 26...Nd6 and then I had the absolute final chance on move 29 with 29...Qh5 trying to attack the king and actually being  a pawn down is not that big of a deal but I played 29.Qf6 too quickly and then quickly lost.

Round 7: This line Crushes the Sicilian!

I knew my opponent played the Sicilian but I didn't know which one because he didn't have games in which he faced the Open Sicilan so I went kind of unprepared for this game, but if I am white there aren't a lot of things that annoy me. He played 2...e6 and I remembered a preparation I have against it, this preparation comes from a rapid game facing a 2000 FIDE rated player in which I just played an attacking move but that wasn't really theory I surprised my opponent and won a really beatiful game with a knight sacrifice so then I looked at the line I had played, played it online sometimes and never lost a game without it I never analyzed it with the engine in depth but when I saw 2...e6 I knew I wanted to go for that line. As you see in the game the line consists in trading the knights on c6 and then going for a quick castle and f4 to try ot push e5 getting a really strong bishop, great squares for the knight and a huge attack on the king. My opponent played 9...Bc5 and I think that was a mistake because 10.Kh1 was a really useful move, and here he knew an idea 10...h5 which I didn't know at all, but this didn't shook me, because he thought for like 10 minutes about playing it and I had seen the idea, if he had played it instantly it might had gotten me scared but because I knew it was a possibility I remained calm and found the right moves 11.e5 and after 11...Ng4 I played 12.Qe2 and he was already worse and he made it even worse for himself with the move 12...Qd8 trying to attack me, allowing 13.Ne4 and he has to retreat the bishop and he decided to play 13...Ba7 and I spent a long time calculating 14.Nd6 and 14.f5 the thing is that both are good but in the end I decided to play a move I could have played instantly 14.g3 a really calm move that allows the resource 14...f5 I thought I was still better after it and I am right but the game is still complicated instead any of the moves I was calculating would have been great and clearly winning. My opponent really scared of my knight opted for the wrong resource with 14...d5 because I have 15.Nd6 and after 15...Ke7 then 16.h3, the funny thing is that I couldn't really take the knight because there was a rook sack on h2 and a mate because of the combination of the bishop in a7 the pawn on g4 and the queen. But I just wasn't going to take the knight if he ignored me the next move was Kg2 and then there was a threat of taking the knight. But my opponent on time pressure already, folded and played Nh6 losing the h5 pawn and allowing a really strong position and attack. The only moment when I got a little bit scared was after 19...Qg8 a great find by my opponent with only 30 seconds on the clock, I only got scared because I was completely miscalculating completely something when I realized it I calmed down and realized it was still clearly winning. And after 21.Nf5 winning a piece and with opponent with 30 seconds I was sure I was going to win. And he blundered mate after a few moves.

Round 8: Three pieces or a queen?

I made a video about this game if you prefer a video format: https://youtu.be/-t4MEya3JxQ

In this game preparation was impossible because he played e4, d4 or c4 and he played a lot of things against e5 so I just looked up what he played the most against e5 I saw it was the italian and I was happy to go into it. In the end he played the Scotch Opening and that gave me the change to recycle a preparation I did for a tournament 1 year ago, I really liked that preparation but I hadn't been able to play it because of my change to the Sicilian and the lack of players who play the Scotch. So I thought for a minute if I really remembered all the prep some lines were a bit foggy for me but I decided that my opponent was for sure going to be more confused than me and I went for it and it really paid off I got a great time advantage and my opponent looked shocked, I really recommend this line the only negative thing is that white can go into a really dry endgame but in this case I had seen that endgames were his weakness and he was higher rated so he wasn't going to do that. And actually if you haven't analyzed with the engine the line, and you just calculate it actually seems like black wins a pawn. But ok he actually got a worse position from the opening and only 20 minutes for 24 moves until the time control.

On move 11 I played 11...Qc5 instead of 11...Qf6 I thought about both the reason I liked Qf6 was because I allowed the bishop to develop on c5 and it seems that was the right approach, the reason in the end I decided to play 11...Qc5 was to pressure the position.

And on move 12 after 12.Be3 I played 12...a6 which I calculated didn't lose material against 13.NxN because I could sack the queen temporarly with 13...BxB to then get it back winning material in the process. Actually 12...a6 wasn't the best move and the best move was 12...Bd6 with a similar idea against 13.NxN. The best move for white was to just retreat the bishop 13.Ba4 but he played 13.Qe2 with the idea of winning the queen after 13...axB 14.Ne6 and here I made the decision to play 3 pieces against queen with 14...BxNe6 which actually unnecessary 14...Qf5 was winning too but for me it seemed risky. After that trade on move 16 I played Bd5 instead of Nd4 which was actually the move I calculated first and made me decide on sacking the queen for the three pieces but then I decided that 2 pieces and a rook was the right decision practically speaking. On move 19 he threw all of the option for quick enough counterplay with h4, a4 directly would have been a greater choice and the game would have been hard still. Instead h4 gave me a tempo to bring my rooks in and in move 23 my opponent completely collapsed with Qa4 losing instantly a rook and the game. He in the game analysis he said he didn't really care about the blunder because he was already lost, I can't understand that way of thinking, if you play on you have to keep the fighting spirit, trying to play good moves and to try and rob the game, if you're just going to resign mentally, resign on the board too. But well I wanted to mention a final thing in move 31 I was so relaxed that I nearly threw the game completely taking the f3 pawn with the bishop allowing an stalemate trap in the end I came to my senses and played the winning move but this goes to show me that I have to still always be alert and even though it didn't happen I still take the lesson as hard as I would have taken it if I had really blundered.

Round 9: Sometimes what looks free it isn't.

Now that I started an streak and I had won 2 games in a row I was really happy and decide to prepare in conscience again, I saw that my opponent played a lot of things but e5 mainly and I saw that he allowed the Fried Liver and that he played the Traxler and the b5 tricky line but the Traxler more often, because I knew better the b5 line I just prepared for the Traxler. In the end he played the the b5 line I played Bf1, and then after Nxd5 I played Nxf7 getting into something I usually play.

Then on move 10 he shocked me I played 10.Qf3 and he blocked with the knight 10...Nf6 a crazy move that allows me to take the rook! I thought about taking it for 30 minutes and saw there was counterplay and that he was getting the bishop back but I was still up an exchange in the end. Of course I supposed that would probably be theory for him and I was really scared that there was a huge preparation, but I just went for it in the end and took the rook which is the best move.

My first mistake was 14.Qxe2 which already allows a lot of counterplay that pawn was a shield and I just had to focus on developing and then I could take it easily I thought about it but I didn't want to complicate and in the end it complicated way more.

And on move 17 I missed that it was way better to please play the check in c4 and then Qb5 which I played directly allowing and endgame that was actually worse for me. My opponent misevaluated the endgame and refused the trade of queens with 17...Qd6, after 18.Na4 he had the brilliant resource 18...Ng4 but he missed it and played the move I thought he would play 18...Bd4. Actually after my move 19.Qa5 which doesn't do anything really I was losing with a simple move like 19...Re8 and I am just so passive and my position is so cramped that I am lost, instead of 19.Qa5 I should have played a3 trying to free myself.

My opponent instead of 19...Re8 he played 19...Ba6 I found the resource 20.d3 and after he took I allowed a sacrifice of the bishop on f2 thinking that I might defend after it with Kh1 and even though I am worse due to the activity of the black pieces I still have the exchange so I can fight and play on. He didn't play the sacrifice and just brought the rook with 21...Re8. Then 22.Be3 only move to survive and he went crazy and sacked the rook with 22...Rxe3. And after fxe3 Bxe3 Kh1 the only move that says it's 0.0 it's Kg6 because then he still has the attack and I don't have the possibility to check the king to make a defense as I did when he played 24...Ne4 and I defended with 25.Qf5 Ke7 26.Qxe4, getting into an endgame of rook against bishop in the end of the line which I am really proud to say I converted flawlessly with a final sacrifice 44.RxBd5 converting into a winning king endgame.

Round 10: Preparation mixed with accuracy, invincible combination.

In round 10 I was competing for the prize for my rating category and looked at my results and tiebreaks and I saw that I needed to win a draw was not enough, I found a game of his against an stronger player and I took that line because I saw he made a mistake in it, and it surprises me how many players don't correct opening mistakes just because they weren't punished in that game. A thing I recommend is looking at openings your opponent played a wrong move in and depending if they were punished and the opponent they played against, it's probable they will repeat the mistake. I did it in this tournament 2 times and got 2 great positions. Until move 10 I was in prep, the reason I am better is that he move the bishop 2 times and after that I attacked it and got space and another tempo. After 10.a3 I knew the plan was c5 because I had looked at other lines in this case I would have found it without knowing it because it was easy but I recommend that if you make a prep first you memorize the couple moves you're sure they will play and then look a bit deep and see the plans you don't need to memorize the deep lines but just the plans. If you have a coach that explains them to you then even better this is just in case you have to prepare alone with the engine as I did.

Back to the game on move 16 I had 16...c4 which looked strong then I talked with my opponent and he dismissed it quite quickly because it stops the pressure I thought about in game but I reached the same conclusion even though I was pretty sure that the engine likes those types of moves. A thing I didn't mention is that with my prep and the few accurate move from 10 to 16 I got a really healthy time advantage and he was down to 2 minutes so with the time situation and the position my goal was clearly I wouldn't allow him to survive until the time control. And that happened I played 21...dxe3 thinking that him having 30 seconds he would play 22.Bf3 collapsing and that happened I played 22...Rd2 23.Qc7 exf2 and he resigned. 

Final thoughts:

After this really good finish winning the last 4 rounds I finished on 7,5/10 and a +153 FIDE a great result, unfortunately I didn't get any prize in the end, because all the results that had to happen to make me not win the prize happened a guy with 7 that if he won he was winning a general prize and then he wasn't in the rating category he made a draw and got first place of the rating category and then the other 2 players competing with me for the prize, both won and had better tiebreaks. https://s1.chess-results.com/tnr1134411.aspx lan=2&art=9&fed=CAT&turdet=YES&flag=30&snr=153&SNode=S0

In the end what I learnt and what I think it was the main difference with the other tournaments of this summer, was my ammount of preparation, rest and confidence I prepared way better and way more I focused on opening weaknesses and I improved lines in openings in which I was getting uncomfortable positions. And the rest part was a huge thing as well for the other tournaments I was so discouraged from some results that I just went to sleep way too late then I was tired and because of that didn't prepare and blundered more in my games, and for the last part my confidence improved a lot because of the tournament I played before this one in which I beat stronger players, in the second tournament of the summer I knew my confidence was a problem because I was giving draws in good positions to a lot of lower rated players. So I tried to work on it, decided that I was going to refuse any draw offer in the third tournament of the summer Santa Eugenia and the good results gave me back the confidence as I said before.

This are the general things, then particular things: I learnt this way of preparing specifically which gave me great positions, that rapid games can give you great lines for the future I kind of already knew that but round 7 confirmed it,  and of course learnt lots of things from concrete positions but saying all of them would be too much, so here there are the most important ones:

How to play the Kings Indian, a line against the Najdorf, a new line against the Queens Gambit, how to play a Rook vs Bishop and a pawn endgame, the power of three pieces against the Queen, how I need to study again the Evans Gambit and finally the power of tactics if the backrank is unprotected: https://youtu.be/6MuLWKyaLLE

I have a yt channel if you could suscribe I would be really grateful: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCnJYafn5qkk64-z5VbxABg

And a chess.com team I will organize a big event with a huge prize soon:

https://www.chess.com/club/scc-team

This where I finish this blog hope that you liked it and if you have any feedback in how to improve please tell me.