Winning my group OTB - Round 1

Sort:
Avatar of adumbrate
I blunder in the opening and outplay my opponent in the middlegame.
This was my first round game, and it was quite important  for me to get a good start to the tournament. For moral purposes.

 --> Game 4

Avatar of adumbrate

I guess.. Tell me what move you think is a blunder for my opponent

Avatar of TmoRay
Adumbrate, overall looks like a good win for you. I think you both got away from sound opening fundamentals. Too many pawn moves, not enough piece development and neither one of you got your king to safety. Fundamentally it was poor execution in the opening for both. You were actually doing better in the opening than your opponent. Example of your opponent's early bad moves, (4...,a6 , 7..., Be4) both gave away tempi. Your opponent did blunder when taking Rxh1+. Seems like a logical move but if you look deeper, Rxg2 wins a piece and the pawn. I think they were worried about Rh8+ possibly winning the queen with the discovery attack if the king moves but Bf8 negates that threat. Even though they blundered there, if they play f7-f5 then you are in a terrible position. How do you activate either of your bishops? The white squares are fully covered by black and the only developed bishop on Good square is the black dark square bishop. What I really see from this game is, you were continually looking to gain tempo and attacks while your opponent was only reacting.
Avatar of adumbrate

I agree it was not the best game.. The thing about Ne2 was that if I dont do that I would be down two pawns and in a hopeless position. With Ne2 I can hope that he will take on h1 in fear that if Rxg2 then Rh8+ Bf8 Kf1 trapping the rook. And it worked out. But you won't see me repeating this stuff. 

Avatar of TmoRay
I looked at the possibility of the rook being trapped on g2 in the line Rh8+ Bf8 Kf1. In this line Rxf2 and Kxf2. Black is still doing great. Two minors for one major is winning. The fact is, your threat was real enough for your opponent to miscalculate and this is just as much part of OTB chess as anything else. Your opponent settled for the pawn advantage. If I had to guess, the move was probably made quickly almost automatically. The most important thing missing for your opponent was the follow up. When he/she failed to lock down the light colored squares all of your pieces sprung to life. All his/ her pieces are scrambling to find active squares on the queenside. You maintained the tempo advantage the entire game. Sometimes tempo is more important than material. Reason why we see so many opening gambit lines. Btw- your game 4 win! Outstanding win. Queen sacrifice to get the 2 Knights corner mate. Beautiful!
Avatar of FortunaMajor

Nice game. 6..Ra7 looks strange though.

Avatar of yureesystem

Abunbrate, you and your opponent played the opening like a master, the first 9 moves are perfect. Your slight mistake is 10.Nxg6 is too earily and open the h-file but the middlegame you outplay him. Keep playing like this and you earn candidate master soon. I really impress with the first 9 moves, GREAT OPENING PLAY!