Playing scared

Following my last tournament where I went 5/6 and gained a good chunk for rating, I was really looking forward to starting up another tournament of weekly games. The unfortunate thing, though, is that, while I was incredibly motivated to play and study chess, I didn't really have the time or energy. My job had become incredibly busy with me working late into most evenings, and to make matters worse, it wasn't very engaging work, leaving me quite drained at the end of each day. I actually considered taking byes for both of these games due to having no time and being quite exhausted, but I chose to play because I desperately needed something to take my mind off work for a few hours.

Game 1: T.K. vs. Mike (June 2026)

Since new ratings hadn't posted yet (typically happens at the end of each month), my rating for the tournament seeding was still 1491 which meant I was likely to be playing one of the stronger players in the first round. I didn't really think much of this since I welcome the challenge. Pairings came out, and it was time to try to lock in.

1. e4 c5 2. d4
A Smith-Morra. I was actually really excited to see this admittedly. Earlier this year I had switched over my black repertoire against 1. e4 to the Sicilian, so I was looking to get some experience in this opening. I definitely have some struggles still, but I'm working on it!

2... cxd4 3. c3 dxc3 4. Nxc3 Nc6 5. Nf3 e6 6. Bc4 a6 7. O-O Nge7 8. Bg5
Pretty standard stuff for the most part. The most common move by the Masters here is 8... f6, but I prefer to go for h6 instead.

8... h6 9. Bh4 g5 10. Bg3 Bg7 11. Qe2 Ng6 12. Bd6

In this position I had my first real think of the game. The bishop is annoying on d6, no doubt, but it's not doing all that much.

That being said, I was laser focused on trying to figure out how to castle. My thought process only included thoughts on consolidating my position with a pawn advantage, and we'll see very clearly throughout this game how that worked against me. I think in a blitz game, I would play b5 here without thinking, but in this game I didn't even look at it.

12... Bf8
Going for trades.

13. Bg3 Bg7 14. Bd6 Bf8
In hindsight, I'm actually disappointed in myself for playing this way. If the entire point of playing the match was to spend a few hours not thinking about other things, why even risk a quick draw? It's not a "bad" result for me per se, but I think I should have done something else. Either way, it didn't matter as my opponent wasn't interested in the draw.

15. Bxf8 Kxf8 16. Rfd1

At this point, I'm okay with how the game has gone. I'm a pawn up and I'm solid. I just have to solve some problems, like my terrible light-squared bishop. At this point, you're probably thinking, "Hey Mike! It's easy! Just play b5-Bb7!"

And you're somewhat right. This is certainly better than anything I did, but the engine likes a more ambitious plan. The engine really likes the plan of going for g4 and Qg5. I'll be honest, I didn't consider that at all during this game, again, because my thought process was focused purely on consolidating.

I did actually look at b5-Bb7, but I started getting really worried about loosening up my d-pawn and decided against it. This will lead me into my main takeaway from this game a bit early: My mindset in games where I have a slight material advantage is terrible. I completely withdraw into a defensive shell and clutch my material advantage as if my life depends on it. In reality, it probably would have been better to do what I can to develop my pieces, even if it meant I had to give back the material. It's also possible that without this mindset, I would have at least considered the more ambitious g4 plan, but there's obviously no guarantee.

16... Qe7 17. a4 Qc5 18. Ba2 Nce5
Not bad moves per se, but definitely not the most optimal and certainly not ambitious.

19. Nxe5 Nxe5!?
19... Qxe5 was better.

20. Qh5 b6 21. Nd5!

A shocker! It certainly surprised me, especially with how little time my opponent spent on it. Because of that, I immediately thought they must have missed something. Rather than objectively calculating the position, I was searching for holes in their analysis to justify accepting the knight. I saw that my queen and knight would be forked after exd5, but I saw that I had Qe7 to hold it all down. I assumed that my opponent missed this. I mean, why not? Retreating moves are hard to see sometimes. And I also assumed that they were trying to win their pawn back. So after a bit of a think, I went for it.

21... exd5 22. Rxd5
And in this position, I realized it... The knight still hangs because after 22... Qe7 23. Rxe5 Qxe5 24. Qxf7#
A super nice find from my opponent I have to say!

At this point though, I was fairly flustered, so my moves are just terrible...

22... Qc6 23. Rxe5 Rh7 24. Rf5 f6 25. Qg6 1-0

Game 2: Mike vs. C.A. (June 2026)

Not much of an intro needed for this game. I'm on 0/1, and looking for a win. Let's get right into it.

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O Be7 6. Re1 b5 7. Bb3 O-O 8. d4
I decided to switch it up rather than playing 8. c3 and going into a Marshall.

8... d6 9. c3

And we've reached the Yates variation of the Spanish.

9... Bg4 10. Be3 Re8
So far I'm playing fairly standard moves. I was a bit curious about Re8. At first glance, it seems like a natural move to a degree, but it felt a little strange to me. I thought that Re8 was inviting me to play d5 which would close off the file for Black's rook and create problems with their dark-squared bishop.

11. Nbd2 Bf8 12. d5
Going for my plan here.

12... Na5 13. Bc2 c6?

The c6 break is a typical plan in some Spanish positions, but here it's a mistake.

14. b4 Nc4 15. Nxc4 bxc4
I'm winning a pawn!

16. Bg5?
Just kidding!

And here we come to another point where for some reason I was playing afraid. 16. dxc6 makes a lot of sense, and there's little risk to playing this move. But for some reason, I was seeing ghosts and thinking that 16... d5 was really scary for me. I don't remember exactly what I was thinking about as this game was a few weeks ago, but somehow I convinced myself that I would lose the knight on f3 if I were to take on c6. So I played something else instead.

16... cxd5 17. exd5 h6 18. Bxf6 Qxf6 19. Be4
The engine doesn't like Be4 here, but I thought it made a lot of sense in the moment as it appears to hold my entire position together. It prefers 19. h3 and accepting the doubled pawns.

Now my plan of action moving forward was to try to win the weak pawn on c4.

19... Be7 20. Qe2 Rec8 21. h3 Bxf3 22. Bxf3 Qg5 23. Qe3 f5 24. Bd1
Opponent is taking space on the kingside. I'm rerouting my bishop to a better square. I'm looking to generate some play on the queenside since Black's bishop is cut off from that side of the board for the time being.

24... Qxe3 25. fxe3 e4 26. Ba4
Going for my plan!

26... Bf6 27. Rec1 Ra7 28. Bc6
Now the rook is cut off from the defense of the pawn. Now I need to activate my rooks and win it.

28...g5 29. a4 Rb8 30. Ra2 Kg7 31. Rb2 f4 32. Kf2 Be5 33. Rcc2 h5 34. b5 axb5 35. Bxb5

There are few things I should mention here. First, the engine thinks I'm worse. During the game, I actually thought I was better, so I clearly have some work to do on evaluating positions. But the reason I thought this was because I didn't see anything concrete for my opponent. I have a clear plan and a way to win a pawn almost by force and I have an outside passed pawn with Black's king and bishop offside.

I'll also mention that the engine actually prefers taking with the rook here, but it leads to a draw.

35... g4 36. hxg4 hxg4 37. exf4 Bxf4 38. Rb4 Rf8 39. Rxc4
And I've won my pawn! At this point I'm feeling pretty good about my winning chances.

39... g3+ 40. Ke2 Re7 41. Rb4 Bg5

Challenge: Find the best move for white

In this position, I saw the rook coming and felt that I had to move my king. However, I missed a nuance and played a move that loses the game.

42. Ke1??
which loses to

42... Rh8!
Better would have been 42. Kd1! If Black goes for the same plan, White plays 43. Re2! helping to transfer the king to the queenside while also placing pressure on the e-pawn.

I didn't consider this maneuver at all, but it makes so much sense. I'm pretty sure I thought my c-pawn was still attacked by the bishop in this position, so I hadn't considered that I could move my rook.

43. a5 Rh1+ 44. Ke2 Rf7

I have one move to not get mated on the spot, and unfortunately it leads to a tactical sequence where I'm down a rook. And so, I think it's pretty understandable that I was feeling pretty upset here. I went from being up a pawn to being down a rook in a few moves.

45. Rxe4 Rf2+ 46. Kd3 Rd1+ 47. Kc4 Rxc2
There's a skewer here, and I did see it. But at this point, I assumed my only source of counterplay would be to get my a-pawn up the board. Since the promotion square is a light square, I thought I needed to hold on to this bishop to support the promotion. However, this is another situation where I fell into a bit of a one-track mind. I had plenty of time during the game to come up with ideas, but I focused only on the a-pawn. If I had spent more time, maybe I would have seen that the resulting position after Ba4 would have ended up in a position where I'm down a bishop but have three pawns.

48. Kb3 Rxg2 49. Ra4 Rf2 50. Rg4 Rb1+ 51. Ka3 Kh6 52. Bc4 Bc1+ 53. Ka4 g2 54. a6 Be3 0-1
I played a few more moves and resigned.

Takeaways!

Overall a really disappointing start to my tournament so far. I was traveling the next week, so I took a bye for the third round. So my next post will feature a game where I'm playing round 4 on 0.5/3.

My main takeaway here is that, for whatever reason, I was playing scared during these games. In game 1, I wanted to hold on to my pawn advantage for dear life and didn't consider anything more ambitious. In game 2, I was too afraid to win the pawn! I definitely have some work to do on the psychological side of the game.

I think another takeaway here is that I need to do more to stay objective in positions after a blunder or mistake. Both of these games could have ended differently if I spend more time considering my options rather than accepting defeat too soon.