My recent tournament games - Part 1

Hi, my name is Philipp and I am a chess enthusiast from Germany. I am 36 years old and playing chess since 6 years. I learned the chess rules as a child from my father, but never played constantly as a child. But as an adult, I started to learn more about the game and trained on a daily basis. My current FIDE Rating is 1542 and my national Rating in Germany (called DWZ) is 1463.

Today I want to share my first game from my last tournament with a classical time control. It was a 5 round swiss tournament with a time control of 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 15 minutes after that with an increment of 30 seconds per move. I was playing in Group E with an ELO range of 1600 - 1400. The player field was quite strong, I started at #30 out of 52 in my group. In my first round, I was paired against the #5 with an ELO of 1657, so I am the underdog in this match!

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You can find the whole game here.

The Game

[Event "DSAM 2022"]
[Date "2022.07.01"]
[Round "1"]
[White "Philipp87"]
[Black "nameless"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A45"]
[PlyCount "53"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. c4 dxc4 6. Bxc4 Nbd7 7. Nc3 a6 8. a4
   Nb6 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Nbd5 11. O-O Nxf4 12. exf4 Nd5 13. f5 Be7 14. fxe6
   fxe6 15. Rfe1 O-O 16. Qe4 Rf7 17. Qxe6 Nf4 18. Qe4 Bd6 19. Ne5 Bxe5 20. dxe5
   Qd2 21. e6 Rf6 22. e7 Re8 23. Rad1 Nh3+ 24. gxh3 Qxf2+ 25. Kh1 Rd6 26. Rxd6
   cxd6 27. Nd5 1-0

1. d4

As a lifelong 1.e4 player, this was my first time with 1.d4. I want to test something new, as I was a little bit frustrating with all the French, Sicilian, Caro-Kann games with 1.e4. So lets look how it works out!

1... Nf6 2. Bf4 d5 3. e3 Bf5 4. Nf3 e6 5. c4

The London System is not my first choice, but it was a practical weapon for me to get some 1.d4 positions without learning all the heavy theory after 2.c4. Personally, I like to challange the center here with c4 immediately and to open the a4-d1 diagonal for my queen.

5... dxc4 6. Bxc4 Nbd7 7. Nc3 a6 8. a4

As black, I don't like to take on c4 with the center pawn. Also, it gives me a free tempo for my bishop, which controls important central squares. With 8.a4 I wanted to prevent ...b5, but castle should be fine as well.

8... Nb6 9. Bd3 Bxd3 10. Qxd3 Nbd5

Here I was thinking about Be5 to save my bishop pair or to trade knights on d5. But I was thinking about development advantage. If I castle and he play Nxc3 or Nxe4, I developed 2 pieces, my queen and castled, while he is still uncastled and got only one piece out. This could be worth a bishop pair and a slighlty demolished pawn structure, isn't it (well, the enige does not like my approach, but we are all humans :-) ).

11. O-O Nxf4 12. exf4 Nd5 13. f5

The pawn was hanging, so I had to choose what to do. Taking on d5 will solve some development issues from my enemy, and Ne2 or moving the queen looks unambitious. As the black king is still in the center, I should open up the position and get my rooks into play!

13... Be7 14. fxe6 fxe6 15. Rfe1 O-O 16. Qe4

The opening works very well for me. The pawn structure in front of the black king is weak, the e6 will fall very soon and I am dominating the e-file.

16...Rf7 17. Qxe6 Nf4 18. Qe4 Bd6 19. Ne5 Bxe5 20. dxe5

Of course not 20.Qxe5 due to 20...Nd3 with a fork! Also the e5-pawn is now a passed pawn and will create some trouble for black!

20... Qd2 21. e6 Rf6 22. e7 Re8 23. Rad1 Nh3+

The Black position is hopeless, so he tries to get some kind of counterplay. But there are no real threats!

24. gxh3 Qxf2+ 25. Kh1 Rd6 26. Rxd6 cxd6 27. Nd5

Black resigned. There are no safe checks for the black queen, so there is no perpetual. The pawn will promote sooner or later and the king is in danger! A nice start in this tournament!