My First U2000 Tournament

congratulations dude. i enjoyed the "less in depth" commentary as im pretty new to the depth of chess. have played all my life but only learned a few openings and read a few forums in the last 2 months. gd luck with any more tournaments:)

In the final game, doesn't 35. Rb8 win? 35. ... Rxc6 36. dxc6 Qxb8 37. c7 Qc8 38. a6 Ba5 39. a7 Bxc7 40. Qc6.

@blueemu Thats a really good Idea!!! I thought it worked too after you brought it up but thought I'd check with a computer and it gives a draw with a miraculous line involving you getting 2 queens that I never would have seen above board I dont think.
I'll post it after class

@blueemu
Here are the lines that I came up with, I used a computer for some of it to check but I tried to see the ideas myself too... I probably would have lost if he'd played this...

Yeah... Queen endings often end up drawn, since it's so hard to make progress without exposing your King to perpetual check.

@jackthemuss
Thanks for that, yeah the heavy computer analysis tends to make the real lessons of this tournament become less clear, 1 do not pin my rook, 2 always look for intermezzo moves because I tend to miss them in my calculations
Game 1 was black against one of the top rated players in the class, and I later found out that he had played board one on my university's chess team before I had become a student there. I am happy I found that out after the game.
An exciting first game for sure! I was already happy with the tournament as I had little hope going into this higher class.
The second game was against an 1800 player this time with white and I played one of the best KIA games of my life (despite missing a free piece because I was so fixated on the positional plan I employed).
The next day came and I started to crumble I just played bad moves despite a good opening i was playing the person who eventually won the class which makes this loss even harder to swallow as I had a good position
In the last game I was sitting right beside the scoresheet and I realized that my only shot at a prize was a win... I proceeded to fail in the opening get smashed the whole game and than at the very end there's a twist I almost feel guilty getting
That game confirms the opinion that resignation is not recommended unless you are in the open division.
Overall I was impressed with my first day and my result but I could have done better in the last two games for sure. Thanks for reading any comments would be appreciated let me know what you think!!
Important Note! My Analysis was done without computers and done based on my thoughts during the game and only shallow analysis afterward so I probably missed alot.