Living Large at London Chess Classic, Part 2

Hi Chesskids! I'm back to finish my story about the London Chess Classic, for part one you can find it here.

Round 5: The game would me against Smith Andrew. My opponent is an FM who played a really short game in the Benoni with me where I did not know what do to at the end and therefore was happy to accept his draw despite an advantage for me in the final position. After Round 5: 3.0/5. 

Round 6: The game was Ben Ogunshola-Shreyas Royal. This is another short, but very nice positional game. My plan was to play the QGD (Queen's Gambit Declined) against d4 every time I was black in this tournament and this time it was no different.

Can you find the plan I had here in my mind? it is a good strategical exercise.  I played 1...e5 and with the plan of 2..e4, stopping e4 by himself. The game followed with 2.f5 e4 3.dxe4 Bd6, which activated my pieces and helped me gain massive control on the weak e5 square.

It was a comfortable and intuitive win after that. I placed my knight on g4, bishop on d6 which left him with some weaknesses to defend, eventually leading to a blunder. After Round 6: 4.0/6 which meant I was doing extremely well and would get even stronger players.

Round 7: I was now playing an IM as white and no matter how much energy and confidence I had, I did not expect myself to win this. I had played this IM before and therefore knew he would play b5 after 1.d4 which is something I do not recommend anyone to play but is worth preparing against as it can becoming an annoying weapon for you to face.

I had played very well positionally again as my intuition could see obvious but effective moves easily until it came to a deep middlegame where I was in a few dilemmas and I had a drought of my intuition for telling me the best moves. I was better all the way and even completely winning position at a few points!

I missed a queen sacrifice which I saw but was unsure about. In the end I had to go for it but later when it was only better for me instead of winning. After a really long grind (about five hours!) he began to make some bad moves and I managed to calculate a very nice win despite my exhausted self. After Round 7: 5.0/7 which made a possible contender for an IM norm if I won a game and drew one in the next two games. 

Round 8: I was on board 8, rubbing shoulders with IMs and GMs and even ahead of a few! I was the second U18 in top 10 boards, the other being Indian Prodigy Praggnanandhaa who is much older than me and a 2600 GM who later won the event.

I myself was playing a very strong person who was a Bulgarian 2497 IM. The game was Martin Petrov-Shreyas Royal. It was an Italian where I was black, I even managed to get a better position just playing the wrong order of moves which led to my loss. A good tip is when you see a good series of moves try it in different move orders to see which way is better.

After Round 8: 5.0/8 it was a very tiring tournament and since I could not compete for the IM Norm anymore my parents decided to give me a break from the last round and instead play the rapid and blitz sections which would come in the remaining two days after the final round.

Conclusion:

It was a fantastic tournament in which I had learnt a lot and I hope you did too!