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My Best Game of the Tournament

sputnick
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Last weekend I played a five round tournament with a time control of 2 hours for 40 moves and then 1 hour for the remainder. I hardly ever play tournaments with such long time controls, and I really enjoyed it. Game four was a strategic Nimzo-Indian battle. Playing black, I took the game into a very unbalanced and strategically rich position. Around move 20 I threatened to gain a positional bind on my opponent, and he correctly sacked a pawn to free his light square bishop and gain activity. On move 27 he made a mistake in his effort to build up a kingside attack, and I capitalized on it to close the kingside, gain a protected passed pawn, and secure an advantage. The position was still complicated, and it took me some time to reorganize my pieces for queenside action. By move 34 I was winning but only had 3 minutes left in the first time control. Failing to see how I could escape a repetition and capitalize on my advantage, I offered a draw on move 36. Despite the conclusion, it was an excellent game against the top seed in my section. It shows that I need to work out some thinking process and time management problems.