The game below was played on the first round of the 2015 December Quartets I 1800+ tournament that was played at Red Hot Pawn. This draw was the last game I played in group 3 and in the tournament, because I was not able to advance to the second round. I was only able to win two games and both of those wins were due to a timeout, so the point I got from this draw is the only one I feel I earned because this one was a hard fought game. This might also be the best draw I received this year. Due to this draw my rating increased to new heights, to a new peak rating at the time, 1969. Group 3 consisted of four players and I was third in the final standings with 7 points. My opponent, Pattrick06, finished on second place with 10 points. The group was won by TheBigKat (2449), who won all of his or her games and advanced to the second round. TheBigKat is the sixth highest rated player on the site at the time I am typing this post.
I have never really felt comfortable in playing the Sicilian Defense with either color, but I think this good draw boosted my confidence a bit. The move 6.a4 is not the most common continuation, but when I have played it, I usually do quite well. Probably the two most common moves on move six are 6.c4 and 6.N1c3, but I prefer a4 because it better suits my play style than those two moves. I basically want to stop the move b5 and reserve the c4-square either to my bishop or to my knight, depending on what my opponent plays. I think both players continued the game logically until my opponent played the mysterious looking 19...Ra8. Maybe the idea was to play a5 next move, but I stopped that by playing a5 myself. I was quite okay with my position after 20.a5, even though my bishop on c4 and the knight on a3 were rather awkwardly placed.
After Pattrick06 played 23...Kg7, I thought that I should get my knight to the game and played Nc4 after seeing that if my opponent replies with Nxd5, then I can play Nxd6 and I should be doing okay there. Pattrick06 did not take on d5, but instead moved the knight to d7, after which I thought it best to move my knight to e3 where it is better placed than on c4, at least in my opinion. Playing the knight to e3 wins also a tempo, because the bishop needs to move from f5 or be captured by the knight. After I played 26.Ba4, I though that I should be on the better side of the board, but I was not sure about the best plan to improve my position. I played 27.Kg1 because I thought that I should get the king out of the corner and prevent any possible back rank tricks. Not that my opponent threatened any tricks at that moment. After the reply 27...f5, I played 28.c4 because I did not think of anything else to do. C4 is as far as the pawn will go as long as the square c5 is so firmly in the control of my opponent's pieces. The problem with the move c4 is that the pawn is now much weaker because it can't be defended as easily as when it was on c2.
I think after the move 30...Rc7, it was my opponent who started to apply pressure on my position and not the other way around. I was certainly in some trouble, but I think that after the light-squared bishops had been traded off, the position looked a bit more like a draw. I think around that point I offered a draw, which my opponent declined. It was also the only time I did offer a draw in this game if I recall correctly. The thing I noticed after the light-squared bishops were off the board that I wanted to keep the other bishops on the board because I felt that my opponent has better chances to invade into my position if those remaining bishops are taken off the board. I also avoided making pawn moves almost at all cost, because those would have only weakened my pawn structure and made targets for my opponent to attack into. I was really happy to see 45...b5 played because it frees me to do something in the position rather than just sit around. The move 45...b5 also loses a pawn, but not the game, I end up in perpetual check like in the game continuation.
The draw percentage seems to be 100% in the reference games that I took from my database and where the players were rated 2500+.
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