7. Bg5 I'm still learning the Nimzo and I'm no longer in my prepared line on this move. The pin on the knight just looked like a decent option followed by e3. Maybe Nf3 could have been played here instead.
14. Qxc7 I thought for probably 20 minutes on this. Just making sure my queen won't get trapped. I calculated a bunch of variations and saw that my queen always had an out, and saw the line that played out on the board.
15. Bxf6 the point being that the queen can not recapture else losing the knight. Followed by check and a ton of pressure on the exposed king
17. I must admit, I thought I had mate in 2 here (black makes any move, Qxh6+, Kg8, Qh7#). I totally missed Kg7 for some reason.
18. Ne2 I thought about just going for the draw here, but since I'm a pawn up with pressure, I should press on. I actually don't see the way forward though, just a bunch of empty checks. I want to put the knight on h5 or somehow sac a piece on g6. Maybe I can get that f6 pawn to move. There's a potential tactic on the Rook on b8 if a few things line up.
19. b4 May have been seeing a ghost here. I thought if black played b4 the his queen may come in with some counterplay. My logic was stop his counter play and then continue attacking. Maybe I should have just continued attacking!!
20. Qg3+ This was a mistake. My logic was I'm up a pawn and should simplify. Should have ignored the queen and continued to bring my pieces into the game. Like Rc1 or Castles or Ng3 or Nf4.
24. e4 I'm not sure about this move in hindsight. I would have liked to keep black stuck with doubles pawns.
26. e6 I up your threat with a stronger threat. The next couple moves, I'm just trying to simplify into a pawn up endgame.
32. Rd3 I really like my position here. Everything is guarded and my knight is awesome!! but now what?? Could not find the plan to make progress without dropping pawns.
37. h4 This was probably a bad plan. I thought I could get my King up the board followed by g4. Nope!
44...Nxd3 OK material even and we should be drawing. It's midnight, I'm super tired. I was thinking "say draw" pretty much the entire time. Played on anyway.
50. Kg3 BLUNDER!!! It's kinda sad actually. Leading up to this tourney I had been studying a ton on opposition here on chess.com I think I simply failed to calculate correctly. I did look at the line 50. g3 but was struggling to calculate clearly. It's a pretty simple draw really. So I went with "take the opposition and stay in front of the king" This logic was flawed!!
We did play a few more moves and I lost my d4 pawn and resigned. The game was over on move 50 though.
Here is my game in the opening round of the 2017 Southwest Class Championship: Class C. I'm playing as white and simply could not find the nail in the coffin. Eventually black takes advantage of my lack of plan and get back into the game. I make a huge blunder just after midnight to lose the game. Great overall game though!! I was happy to see the CAPS system says my opponent played like Magnus, so good for him!! Enjoy this game and please leave comments.