Defense Against NM

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Lagician

I recently played against NM Diana Mats (@Chess_Lynx) and tried my best to defend against her:

I was lucky she chose Ponziani, an opening I'm quite aware of. Tried as much as I could to not open up the position, but well...once I realised I was quite behind on the clock, I started making mistakes.
Reason for sharing: I'm particularly looking for the chess geniuses to point out my mistakes. And especially, tell me how should I have continued the midgame. At one point, I was completely clueless on how to proceed. I did watch the game analysis later, but some ideas which the engine is suggesting is still unclear to me. I've noticed this pattern in my previous games as well- once the position becomes too complicated, I start making mistakes because I literally have no idea how to proceed. Every other move seems bad to me.

Stormy-Boy-2007
I think the only thing you can learn from this is that you have to keep up the pressure. Also, don’t overthink things too much (spends too much time). Your time spending was what led to your blunder, so just studying positional stuff will help you. Unfortunately, I cannot really teach that because I’m only good with tactics.
Stormy-Boy-2007
Also, how did you get to play an NM in rapid?
Lagician
Stormy-Boy-2007 wrote:
I think the only thing you can learn from this is that you have to keep up the pressure. Also, don’t overthink things too much (spends too much time). Your time spending was what led to your blunder, so just studying positional stuff will help you. Unfortunately, I cannot really teach that because I’m only good with tactics.

So I can learn about "keeping up the pressure" only by playing more games? As for my time spending- yea, you're right I was overthinking a lot because of the fact that I was playing a titled player. And I was able to play her because she was streaming on Twitch () and I challenged her for a match.

Lagician

I guess links can't be posted. You can find in her latest stream from :00 to :38

Hripfria202

It's not a defense, I call it "hanging pieces right and left"

Hripfria202

From move 25 all the advantage that you built just disappeared, but before that blunder you were doing pretty good. Your opponent also didn't play impressively good, but that's OK 👌

Lagician
Hripfria202 wrote:

From move 25 all the advantage that you built just disappeared, but before that blunder you were doing pretty good. Your opponent also didn't play impressively good, but that's OK 👌

Yep, I was unable to handle the pressure from my opponent and gave into it.