A game I'm proud of

Sometimes it seems like I mostly have posted losses here on the blog.  Tonight I actually have a win.  This is another game from a slow chess league game on chess.com.  Basically, the reason that I am proud of the game is because I feel I put in a good effort throughout the game.  Sometimes it seems that the planning a game during the week with an opponent doesn't work that well for me, because it seems like fairly often I'm not in the best mood to play when it is time for the game and so sometimes it seems like I don't play with the best attitude in some way or another, depending on the situation.  So tonight I had two kind of attitude problems.  One was that I was for some reason feeling quite tired and drinking a bunch of iced tea which can usually get me revved up wasn't quite working.  The other was that my opponent was lower rated than me and I felt determined to get a win.  This is usually a very bad thing.  Basically instead of looking to play the best I start expecting a win and that's bad news.  Tonight however I was able to put both of these aside and I really did the best that I was capable of.  I'm certainly not saying it's an amazing game or anything but I feel quite happy that it felt like a tough struggle and I persevered till my opponent made a blunder.  Another thing is that at the end after I had already won the rook, but he put his queen on my second rank, I was actually looking at moving the rook to the seventh to attack the king, but of course that would have allowed him to mate me due to the pawn on h6.  This is another weak point for me, when I feel I have achieved some decisive advantage I often let up a lot mentally and just start looking for ways to end it quickly without paying attention to the opponents possibilities.  Here I kept thinking about his threats and as a result found that quick win.

Ritarix (991) - JabotScrob (1258)

Result: 0-1

Site: Chess.com

Date: 2014.06.28

[...] 1.d4 ♘f6 2.♗f4 g6 3.e3 ♗g7 4.c3 O-O 5.h3 d6 6.♘f3 Here I decided to try to push the f-pawn and go for a kingside attack, something I have used against my regular chess partner RudiV who employs a similar London type setup. 6...♘h5 7.♗h2 f5 8.♘bd2 f4 9.♕b3 ♔h8 10.O-O-O fxe3 11.fxe3 b6 12.♗e2 ♘c6 13.g4 ♘f6 14.♘g5 d5 15.♗e5 This seems to be a mistake to me but I'm not sure I have a great reason. In general I prefer bishops to knights and will often look for chances to trade my knights for their bishops. This is likely an exaggerated issue in my mind, but I'm not sure he is gaining anything by this move. 15...♗h6 16.h4 I had overlooked this possibility. 16...♘xe5 17.dxe5 ♘xg4 18.♗xg4 ♗xg4 19.♖dg1 ♗c8 20.h5 ♖f5 21.♘df3 I'm happy with the following sequence. I felt a bit stumped by his move at first, but then I worked out the following sequence which nets me a pawn and takes off a significant amount of pressure on my king's position. 21...♖xf3 22.♘xf3 ♗xe3 23.♔b1 ♗xg1 24.♘xg1 Seems to me taking with the rook is better. 24...g5 25.♕d1 ♗f5 26.♔a1 ♗e4 27.♖h2 c5 h6 is probably better. I was looking at winning that e-pawn. 28.h6 ♕c7 29.♕h5 ♕xe5 I'm not sure if it's actually a good move, but at least Qf7 threatens something instead of losing a rook. To be honest while I was looking at this I'm not sure I really saw that. I think I thought to myself "Qxh2" but that's game over. Whether I would have seen my error if he actually played Qf7 I don't know. 30.♘f3 ♗xf3 31.♕xf3 ♕xh2 32.♕d1 ♖f8 33.a3 ♕g2 34.♕a4 a5 35.♕d7 Here's where I looked at Rf2 but then realized he could mate me. I'm happy I kept my head in the game. 35...♕e4 36.♔a2 g4 37.♕c6 g3 38.c4 g2 39.cxd5 g1=♕ 40.d6 ♕xc6 41.d7 ♕xd7 42.a4 ♕d5 43.♔a3 ♕e3 44.b3 ♕dxb3#

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