Chess Diary - Part 3

Day 5:Round 7:I did not write much about yesterday's two rounds because I lost in both of them to unrated players. I won't say I played badly but I should have put up a better fight and analyzed the game closely. I think the fact that the players were unrated filled me up with overconfidence and I paid a heavy price for it, losing both the games. And yeah, today I was too focussed on my games so I didn't care which table my friends were playing on in the hall. And after playing a hard fought game that lasted around 4 hours, I did not have the energy left in me to search anyone so I decided to return home.

Today I went in with a sense of urgency. I had analyzed my game yesterday and found out the deficiencies and blunders. Sometimes you make a seemingly harmless move and it costs you the game! I did not believe in it earlier but I had seen it yesterday. Hence, I reached the venue at 3.55 pm, went to check the pairings (and for a change, saw only my table number, rather than the usual days on which I see "everybody's" table and opponents). I was drawn against Vaibhav Varma ( he mentioned it to me specifically that he is a Varma and not Verma) who was unrated. After the two shattering defeats to unrated players yesterday, I was so much down on confidence that I hardly paid attention to his rating. Only while entering his name in the scoresheet did I ask him that.

I was playing white so there was the usual opening that I feel comfortable with. I missed a good move on the 3rd move itself. It did not lose anything but I could have gained a vital advantage. The game went on to take an unusual course from the beginning and somehow I felt comfortable with it. The reason is that most of the players memorize the openings and they know what to play against what attack. I am not a player trained by coaches and all so I feel it quite difficult to memorize them. Hence, my opening is weak. I missed an opportunity or two in the middlegame as well but I had got an advantage of two pawns and was confident of winning in the endgame. However, the winning move did not strike me at the right time and I almost threw away a win, when I worked out an apparently silly move which would be winning for me.
My opponent was taking at least 15 minutes for each move after the 35th move or so. He offered me a draw on the 40th move and only then I realized that if I did not play carefully I would throw away a win.I refused the draw because after losing 3 games on the trot, I could not afford another loss and finally, when I made the 55th move he could not find any escape route and offered to shake hands, which means that the player resigns. It is a pleasure to see this gesture from your opponent and shaking hands after winning the game and saying "well played" is like rubbing salt into his wounds. It felt good to win after 48 hours and I hope I would do well tomorrow as well. I really need to!