This was previously shared in the post B83 Sicilian Defense: Scheveningen Variation, Modern Variation #3. The remainder of the post is taken from the original post, with the exception of the diagrams and the name of the opening has been added to the game, the original classification of the opening can also be seen in the game. This game was played in the atadros's mini-tournament V at GameKnot. The mini-tournament consisted of 11 players and I was 9th in the final standings with 5.5 points, so things did not go all that well in the 20 games I played in this mini-tournament. My opponent, rayfisher, only managed to get one point, from the two draws he managed to get and he was on last place in the final standings. The mini-tournament was won by a player called desaparicidos (2080). The winner was able to gather 17.5 points, which consisted of 17 wins and 1 draw. I, on the other hand, won 2 games and played 7 draws, which is a very rare thing for me.
I have seen the move 8...Bd7 played against me before, but in this game rayfisher went for the move 8...O-O. Out of the two moves 8...O-O might be the more accurate one. The first critical error came in the position below when my opponent played 13...b5. Rayfisher's 13th move was a really bad one and it could have lost the game.
I honestly do not know what I was thinking about when I replied to rayfisher's 13th move, because I played 14.a4 instead of the obvious 14.Nxb5. I messed up my winning chance and ended up in a position that was roughly even. My next chance to take the game firmly in my grasp came after my opponent played 21...Bxd5 in the position below. In order to stay in the game rayfisher's only chance was to play 21...exd5. I had maybe three good moves to play in reply, 22.Qg4, 22.c4 and 22.Qg3 but I did not play any of them. All of those three moves would have been good enough to take the winning advantage. I played the move 22.Bd4 and gave my opponent another chance to hold on.
Rayfisher then played 22...Qc7, which was a mistake and with a correct reply I could have been on the clearly better side of the board. 22...dxe5 and 22...a5 were better alternatives for rayfisher. I was not able to find the best move, so I threw the advantage away again with the move 23.Bd3. Rayfisher took another wrong path in the position below with the move 26...e5. Once again I threw my advantage away, this time with the move 27.Bc3. 27.Qf5 was probably the best move.
My 27th move was only good enough for a draw, but luckily for me, rayfisher played 27...Bf7 in reply, which allowed me to play 28.Qf5 and get the winning advantage. For the first time in the game I was able to take the advantage and keep it for awhile. I did not play all that accurate moves, but when we reached the position below, I played 36.b3 allowing my opponent to get back into the game again. I should have played 36.Bxf5 instead. Rayfisher's next move was a bit sloppy and I could have taken a clear advantage, had I answered 36...Raf8 with 37.Bxf5 or 37.h3.
My 37th move Rfe1 was only good enough to get a drawish position. The game continued to played evenly until my opponent blundered again in the position below with the move 47...h5?? The path towards was a narrow one, only by playing 47...g5 rayfisher could have kept the equality in the position. Rayfisher's 47th move could have been another losing move and while my reply at first was good enough for a winning advantage, I was not able to keep it until the end.
Actually, only my reply 48.d5 was a step into the right direction, but then my reply 49.Ra1 to 48...a3 threw away all my advantage. The next position of interest came after my 50th move in the position below. Rayfisher blundered in the position and played 50...Ra7?? I obviously did not see tactics in this game, but I should have seen the move 51.Rxa2! The point of it is that I would have won a pawn because if 51...Qxa2, I would have taken on f6 with check.
In the game I played 51.Rf2 and the game looked to be going towards a draw again. The draw was agreed upon after 54.Qxf2.
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