Question for *STRONG/TITLED* Chess Players - How do you make things complicated?

A skill I've been thinking about developing lately is being able to find interesting, creative ways to complicate equal, balanced positions, and especially create some tactical opportunities, and sharpen the position up basically. 

I know that this is an important skill at the master level - steer the game into a direction where big mistakes will easily happen, especially for players who don't just blunder without warning. 

I know that there are some basic things you can do to keep a position "tricky":

*Make a positional sacrifice

*Avoid trades

But I'm still confused as to how titled players can get such "creativity" in their games. Part of it must be experience, but I was wondering: Are there any overarching principles and tips that you use to complicate things?

If you've ever played against a lot of intermediate/weaker players, and then a titled player or two, you probably know what I'm talking about.

Here is one example:

This was taken from a finished daily game I played. As black to play, how would you try to win this position against a player rated say, 200-300 points less than you (just some rough numbers - basically, you need to win against a weaker player), supposing you had to win?

In the actual game, all queenside pawns were traded off...

I'm really sick and tired of getting drawish positions against weaker opponents by playing moves that may or may not be theoretically best boardwise, but are essentially "blunders" when it comes to giving me chances to win.

You're right - I was playing swiss cheese for the first time, and was focused on ...d5. ...f5 was much better. 

You think the final position I showed is pretty much drawn? Assuming black doesn't start playing like Carlsen

In my experience, when masters have done that to me, they play some sideline that's objectively equal, but they have a clear idea, and a lot of pieces are still on the board.

When I try to do it against weaker players as white, I play the reti. As black, either KID or pirc sidelines.

One master told me, even if the pawn structure is symmetrical, try for small differences. If they play Nf3 and Nc3, then put one of your knights on the 2nd rank instead of both Nf6 and Nc6 for example, and that you should be willing to accept an objectively slightly worse position if you're trying for a win.

In your game, IMO, the marcozy is a good way to play for a win. Trading so much is not. Not sure where best to deviate (like I said I play the reti when trying to win for sure vs lower rated).

Also vs, e.g. 1800 USCF, I'll often play a random move some time around move 5. A move that I'm sure leaves book, but isn't terrible. Here's a recent one:

 I also played Nbd2 later, when I knew it wasn't great. Later I won

I don't ever want to play something like what happened in the game above again against a lower rated player - essentially my moves were blunders, even though objectively they were OK. 

Valuable lesson.. 

Anyways, although I know what I could've done better, still some comments regarding my general question are welcome!

I will - I happen to like Korchnoi a lot, since we both like to capture pawns and defend

Here's one of my blunders like that vs a lower rated well booked kid

Yeah lol I think I did one of those kinds of things against an 1800+ USCF, who did a "perpetual check" against my queen in an alapin in a daily game. 

Things like this are the next worse thing in chess other than stalemate

lol

Here's something from a lower rated (me) vs higher rated player.  This is by far my one game here that I'm most proud of.  So proud that after I ran it through Stockfish afterwards I was afraid that my above-normal (READ: my 5 kids are at their Great Aunt's and my bed ridden Mother-in-law was passed out so no  one was interrupting me every 10 minutes to pee or to break up a fight and I had had enough sleep)  play would trigger the cheat-checkers.  If I were looking at this game against my 1300 rating, it honestly looks like I cheated b/c my play (according to Stockfish) was really good. Rest assured, I didn't and see no point in cheating at chess.  Anyway, I stumbled upon this thread b/c I entered this game trying to be more defensive and I was expecting to have a more complex position.  The game was 90/30 and I lost on a blunder at the end, in a drawish position according to Stockfish. I then wondered how higher rated players avoid these sort of drawish positions.  I still am wondering.... 8)

(1) The quality of your game indicates no cheating at all, for any level of rating. You even lost the game. 

(2) Your game was never "drawish" - it may have been equal, but that's different from being an easy draw, where the moves to draw are simple. The beginning of a chess game is a "draw", but it's far from achievable.

(3) Avoiding easy draw positions is not something that you have to currently worry about - instead, you need to work on holding equal positions without making simple mistakes. 

Also, I made a thread a while ago saying how beginners should never resign- 

https://www.chess.com/live/game/1360200349

A perfect example!

Positional play, experience, intuition. All the secrets revealed now

My opening repertoire is both not wide enough and not deep enough I'm afraid. I need to learn my usual openings better and also add some variety.

I agree about exploiting small inaccuracies. You have to really understand the position and/or work hard at the board to do that. Most players either play memorized stuff or play it safe and basically ignore the opening.

My worry about cheating (and yes, I lost), was b/c stockfish didn't rate the moves as 'that bad'.  And yea, I agree I have to worry more about mistakes.  8) I just got to thinking about how how highly rated players tend to get into more complex games and was wondering why. I also noticed my game didn't post with the Stockfish scores. 8/  Agreed all around with the comment about my game & what I need to worry about.  And by 'drawish' I mean that stockfish couldn't find a reasonable win before the blunder at the end of the of the game.   I couldn't have held out against this player long enough to win, but I suspect a GM could have.

IM John Bartholomew said in his Climbing the Rating Ladder series that he thinks that players 1800-2000 are usually weaker at positional aspects of the game and at endgames. Sounds like a very realistic theory.

 I'm still a beginner, so take my word with a grain of salt.

Your position at move 9 don't look right, with your poor LS bishop, and b5 and e5 not being possible. I have ideas of where it might have came from (a6 maybe?) but I guess so do you, so I don't need to be more specific and embarass myself with wrong stuffs (or maybe that's how one plays his kind of modern defense, I don't know, but I do much prefer white in this position).

In my opinion, the final position of your diagram proves that 10...d5 was premature, if you played for the win. It was rather obvious that you wanted to play it and your opponent to prevent it, and  it was quite unclear how it could have worked with two white pawns watching d5 and a knight on d4.

I would not have been able to forsee the position on move 16 (among the possible continuations) before playing 10.d5 even in daily, but I would have definitely tried to, and you are possibly able to, or at least to work toward it. Had you forseen this position, you may have tried something else, among Qc7, Ne5 and f5 (edit : I just saw Urk proposed 10.f5), there might be a decent move that keep things complex. I believe even Nxd4 and b6 might be better than 10.d5.

From what I read, you sound like you know where you failed, so... don't fail.

I think in the diagram, it is too late to save the draw, but maybe you should avoid to trade pawns, even if that means keeping your weakeness.