Okay, this is from my round two game against Madani. I am playing with the black pieces and this is black to move. Here I played Bb4 and I have had a lot of luck with that odd move in blitz games. However, it is anti-positional to bring that Bishop into the attack. Even if you win material you create big holes in your structure when it comes off the board. Your pawns are on light squares so the dark bishop is your strongest and most valuable minor piece. Qc7 and d6 are the common moves and keep things solid and offer no immediate weakness.
The above is me to play as white against Sanford from round four. I played the move Kxc5 thinking that I was distracting my opponent from stealing my f-pawn (by Rb4+-Rf4) ... but this pawn is not nearly so powerful as my b-pawn which supports my passed c-pawn AND makes black's a-pawn less likely to squeeze out equality in passing. Simply Kc3 or b3 gives white the win. A silly positional mistake that almost cost me this game ... but better endgame technique saw some tricks develop to win me the game. It was much harder than it had to be.
Alright, here is my last round game against Gurley. This would have been a second place finish in the quad for me with a win. I quickly traded bishops and settled for a balanced ending which turned against me and I lost. However there is a strong shot here that requires some precision that was definitely superior to the dull trade. Black gains a slight edge here by playing Rc4! The best continuation for white then is 20. Rxd5 Ke6 21. Rd6+ Kxe5 22. Rd7 Bxd7 23. Bxc4 Bf5+ 24. Ka1 where white is not completely lost but black is surely much better. Rxc4?? is met by Bxd3+! and Bxf5 is met by Rxd4.
I lost about fifteen rating points from this event but I learned a great deal and I'll be using that knowledge in upcoming games. The rust has been shaken off and it's time to get back to the rating climb.
