Monday, September 29, 2014

Finish with a win! Top Five!

With medal hopes resting on this game, I went with d4 for white. My opponent, Kaumandur Raghunandan played the Slav, and we soon got into a complex position after he made a new move. I felt I was much better, but when he played the a5 shot, I immediately knew that I was worse. I went into a pawn-down middlegame, but with two bishops. My opponent was in time pressure, and I used this to win back my pawn with some tactics. Eventually, we went into an endgame, but on the last move before time control, my opponent lost a pawn. In the endgame, I sacrificed my extra pawn, but eventually won his knight. I won the rook-and-bishop vs. rook endgame with a mate. I ended up with 8/11, but the results I needed on boards 2 and 3 didn't happen. I tied for fourth with Alexey Sarana, the Russian who I lost to, but the tiebreaks were changed; they went from number of wins to number of opponents' points. My tiebreaks were pretty bad, and I ended up finishing fifth. Overall, it was a good tournament and my best ever World Youth finish!

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