Ok, so I don't usually post to brag, but I can't resist. As noted in my improvement thread, I beat a player rated 1903 USCF at the local club today, which is the highest rated opponent I've ever beaten in a USCF tournament game. The game was played at a time control of G/120 (each player had 2 hours for all their moves).
I didn't play perfectly, so my position was awkward for most of the game. But I managed to get my pieces lined up against his castled king in the middle game, and it led to a successful attack. Here's the full game with analysis. Any comments would be appreciated.
[Event "USCF Weekly Tournament"]
[Site "Florida, USA"]
[Date "2008.07.05"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Last year's club champion"]
[Black "Fromper"]
[Result "0-1"]
[WhiteElo "1903"]
[BlackElo "1552"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. c3
{Ponziani's Opening - I've played against it once or twice on the internet, but never in a tournament.}
d5
{I knew Nf6 was the standard move here, but I couldn't see anything wrong with this, so I decided to give it a try.}
4. Qa4
{My opponent played this instantly. I literally didn't see it coming. I was so focused on the c3 pawn supporting a push to d4 that I didn't even think about the fact that it gave the queen an open path, as well.}
Qd6
{Odd, but effective. I didn't want to lose my e5 pawn, and I knew he'd put more pressure on the knight, so this supports both.}
5. exd5 Qxd5 6. Bb5 Bd7 7. O-O Bd6
{Possibly a mistake. My d7 bishop is now hanging, which leaves my knight very much pinned. This affected several of the coming tactical calculations, though it ended up not hurting anything in the long run.}
8. Bc4 Qa5
{Forced. 8. ... Qc5 9. b4, and the queen just has to move again.}
9. Qb3 Nd8
{Believe it or not, this move took me 19 minutes to play. I think that's the longest I've ever thought about a single move in a game, and it's on a move that seems forced - this is the only move to protect both the b7 and f7 pawns. However, I was considering O-O-O, giving up the f7 pawn for the possibility of attacking lanes on the king side. After much calculation, I decided it wouldn't work, so I took the awkward defensive move instead. I just hated having my knight in such a bad spot, especially since it got in the way of getting my a8 rook into the game.}
10. a4 Nf6 11. d4 e4
{I had wanted to play this move for a while now, to make paths for my bishops and queen to all aim at his castled king.}
12. Re1 O-O 13. Ng5 Qf5
{The move order of white's last two moves actually turned out to be completely irrelevant. In analyzing after the game, my opponent and I agreed that I'd have made the exact same moves if he'd played Ng5 before Re1.}
14. Qc2 Re8 15. f3 Bc6
{That e4 pawn was completely pinned, due to the fact that my d7 bishop had been overworked protecting both my e8 rook and my queen. So he keeps piling on the pressure, and I keep piling on the defense.}
16. b4 h6
{Relieving some of that pressure and giving my king lufte.}
17. Nxe4 Nxe4 18. fxe4 Rxe4
{The only safe capture. If 18. ... Bxe4, then 19. Bd3 wins the bishop.}
19. Rf1 Qh5 20. g3 Rg4
{I was starting to run a little low on time here, and I think this was a mistake. I wanted to get my rook out of the path of my bishop for the attack, but this isn't the square for it. Maybe Re7 instead.}
21. Be2 Bxg3 22. Bxg4
{I think 22. hxg3 would have saved him. 22. ... Qh1+ 23. Kf2 Qg2+ 24. Ke1 Qxg3+ 25. Kd1, and the attack sort of fizzles out, though I'd have two pawns for the bishop, better piece development, and those 3 connected passed pawns on the king side are looking strong for me in the long run. But running short on time, this would be tough for me to win at that point.}
Qxg4 23. Rxf7
{Odd looking, yet it makes sense. He's going to lose material, so at least this way, he gets a pawn for free along the way.}
Bxh2+
{I considered the double check on f2 instead of h2, but I realized I was going to lose the bishop either way, so I may as well take the free pawn for it. Other than that, the end result is the same. Note that I was down to 12 minutes on my clock here, in a 2 hour game, so I was starting to feel the time crunch.}
24. Kxh2 Qh4+ 25. Kg1 Qh1+ 26. Kf2 Qg2+ 27. Ke3 Qxc2
{At this point, we were the only tournament game still going at the club, and we made some noise banging out these moves very quickly on the board and clock, so we suddenly attracted an audience. The fact that everyone knew it could be an upset in the making got some attention, as well.}
28. Rf1 Nf7
{Time to get my knight and rook into action. I was down to 10 minutes, and I suck at blitz, so I really was afraid that this would turn into a long endgame, and I'd end up blundering and losing somewhere along the way.}
29. Bd2 Qe4+
{I'd planned to check with Re8 to force the king to the f file, but once the bishop was on d2, this queen check accomplishes the same thing and seems to leave me slightly more flexibility. As I said, I didn't have time for detailed calculation at this point, so I was just shoving his king over to one side of the board however I could, hoping I could end this with a king hunt instead of heading for a long endgame.}
30. Kf2 Rf8
{Planning any knight move to check and force the king to g3.}
31. Na3 Ng5+
{I almost went with Nd6 just to get the knight out of the way to let my rook and queen corner the king, but then I spotted the forced mate that starts by putting the knight on this square.}
32. Kg3 Qg2+ {Black resigned - 33. Kh4 Qh3 is checkmate.}
0-1
My big win - awkward position in Ponziani's Opening
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