Second Round of the Internet Chess Club Monthly Tournament. 

I played white against a player using the handle 'Miracles'.  This was my first ICC game ever, and a tournament game at that.  Miracles was rated in the 1600's and I had the provisional 1400 new player rating.

1. c4 Nf6, 2. Nf3 g6, 3. b3 Bg7, 4. Bb2 o-o, 5. g3 c5, 6. Bg2 Nc6, 7. o-o d6, 8. d3 Bf5.  So far a pretty standard English Opening position, although the sequence was not by the book, I felt I had to race to the a1-h8 diagonal when I saw that black was going to fianchetto on the king side.  Notice that I haven't developed my knight on b1 yet.  I was waiting to see how he developed first to see if I wanted my knight on d2, where I could challenge the center with moves like Ng5, Nge4, or on c3 where I could fight for the d5 square, a typical English Opening theme.  I decided to go for c3.

9. Nc3 Qc8. Now, I know that he wants to play Bh3 and trade light square bishops, maybe hoping that I will play Bxh3, so he can play Qxh3 followed by Ng4 with mate to follow.  I had to decide, do I let him take my bishop, and then I take back with my king?  Or do I want to try to keep my bishop by moving my rook first to e1, so that after Bh3 I can play Bh1 and stay on the diagonal?  I think I made a mistake here in that I had already played Nc3, with a plan on dominating d5, but I needed my light square bishop for that.  I decided instead that I was going to try to push on the dark squares, and made a quiet move.

10. Rb1 Bh3, 11. Ng5 Bxg2, 12. Kxg2 Ne5.  An interesting move.  I had figured that he would play Nd4 instead, and I could then play e3 chasing the knight away.  This move was deeper than I anticipated.  At the moment I was concerned with Qc6+, gaining tempo with the two knights ready to pounce, and perhaps sacrifice one to break up my king side.  I missed the idea that he now had both knights bearing down on g4, and that if my king was forced away from g2, the queen could come to h3 and threaten mate in two again.  I misplayed here and walked right into the trap.

13. Kg1 h6 (the move I missed, driving my knight away from the defense of h3), 14. Nge4 Qh3.  Here I played my knight to e4 because I anticipated the plan just in time.  My idea was to trade one of the knights with check, and then protect the g4 square with my pawn.

15. Nxf6+ Bxf6, 16. f3 Nc6, 17. Nd5 Bxb2, 18. Rxb2 h5, 19. Nf4 Qf5, 20. Qd2 Kg7, 21. Kg2 Rh8.  Black wants to open up the h-file for his rooks, but I am not too concerned about this because of the position of my knight and my rooks can easily contest the h-file.

22. Nd5 e6, 23. Ne3 Qe5.  Here I was aware that black was acquiring more space on the king side, and my idea to expand with my pawns on the queen side was delayed by all the action in the center.  So, my plan was to trade off pieces to give me more space to move.

24. Nd1 f5, 25. Qc3 Raf8, 26. Qxe5+ Nxe5, 27. b4 b6.  After all of that, I finally get my play on the queen side.

28. bxc5 dxc5, 29. a4 Nc6, 30. Nc3 g5, 31. Nb5 h4, 32. Nc7 Rf6.  I knew that he would try this move to protect the pawn.  My plan was to use his plan to open up the h-file to trade the rooks and pick-off this pawn.  Of course, he anticipated this and protected the pawn with his king.

33. Rbb1 hxg3, 34. hxg3 Kf7, 35. Rh1 Rfh6, 36. Rxh6 Rxh6, 37. Rh1 Rxh1, 38. Kxh1 Nd4.  Who is ahead here?  Hard to tell, but Chessmaster 10th Edition (CMX) already has black the equivalent of a full pawn up here.

39. Nb5 Nxe2, 40. Nxa7 Nxg3+, 41. Kg2 Ne2.  You have to wonder, what was I thinking?  Wasn't it obvious that he had the check and the two pawns?  Not to mention a good path for another attack.  Well, we were both running short on time here, and the play was brisk and not as well thought-out as it should have been.

42. Nc8 Nf4+, 43. Kf1 Nxd3, 44. Nxb6 Ne5.  The neat thing about these last few moves is that they lead to this position.  I had just finished studying a Josh Waitzkin lesson on quality versus material, and I felt that even though I was a pawn down, I was focusing on taking the right pawns: the ones that gave me a passed pawn.  Now it is a race that helps me save the draw.

45. a5 Nc6, 46. a6 Ke7, 47. Nc8+ Kd7, 48. a7! Nxa7, 49. Nxa7 Kd6, 50. Kf2 Ke5, 51. Ke3 {Game drawn by mutual agreement} 1/2-1/2. 

So at the end I was up a pawn, and had a good chance to win, but I agreed to a draw because I was short of time, and I knew that he could get to a two connected pawns versus king position on the king side.  My knight was the tipping point, of course, and had I had more time I might have risked playing for the win.  What do you think?  Should I had blitzed it out for the win?