Round 1: Economics vs English

I didn’t prepare anything for the tournament—partly because I didn’t know anyone in the field and what they played, but also because I was too lazy. However, just before the first round I got super nervous, and was concerned about facing the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5), so I looked at some lines in the Grand Prix Attack (3. f4). Luckily, in the first round itself, my opponent played the Sicilian and I got to play my prep up until 9.Qe1. What I had looked at after this was Nd4, but my opponent played Nb4. My c pawn was under attack and I decided to defend it with the bishop.

Key Moment 1 (10. Bb3): While it looks like my pawn is defended, there’s a nifty little move for black—Be6. If I take the bishop, knight takes the undefended c pawn and forks my queen and rook. If I defend the c pawn with my queen, they take my bishop and I’m simply worse: doubled b pawn, backward d pawn, and opponent’s strong knight on an outpost. Luckily, my opponent missed it

Key Moment 2 (10. Bd7): As my opponent missed a key move, I now have a huge advantage if I go with the typical plan of the Grand Prix Attack, which is to attack the king's side. Instead of Qh4, which is the MOST obvious move if one has prepared the Grand Prix Attack, I played Qg3?? This inexplicable mistake shows how nervous I was. Just to explain, the typical idea in grand prix is to go Qh4 and Ng5, looking to mate on h7 by playing f5, fxg6, and sacking the rook for the knight on f6. And if the knight blocks mate by going to h5, I can always push it away by playing g4. Now, by putting my queen on g3, not only is the queen misplaced, but also blocks my g pawn from launching an attack on the king's side.

Key Moment 3 (12. Nxd3): 12. Nxd3 was also a move I completely missed, which shows how bad I was playing in the first round. The interesting this is, the engine says it is a mistake, as I can ignore it and play e5! Lol, I didn’t even consider it. I sacrificed my bishop on f2 and took the knight; however, I’m just losing a pawn in this line, and my opponent’s rooks have now gotten the open f file, which they soon double up on.

Key Moment 4 (16. f5): Being worse, I try to go with the typical plan of the king’s side attack, and I think the most decisive moment of this game was 16. f5. My opponent should call the bluff and just take the pawn; however, they ignore it, and not only does my attack crash through, but I’m also no longer down a pawn.

After this, the only task was conversion, which wasn’t smooth either. I even blundered a draw somewhere, though it was hard to find. Eventually, I won his pieces and the match. I was lucky my opponent was lower-rated—my nerves would surely have let me down against a player of equal strength.

Quarter Finals: Economics vs Chemistry

Quarterfinals and semifinals were the next day, so my nerves were back again. I won white in the toss and my opponent allowed me to play my Vienna (2. Nc3), an opening I’ve played for years.

Key Moment 1 (5. Nxe4): You could tell how bad my nerves were when, in the opening I’ve played for so long, I missed 6. Qg4 attacking both the knight and the pawn. A simple tactic. Although it is also true that I have not played this line in any rapid game as far as I remember, and the move I played (Qf3) is one of the moves in some other Vienna line.

Key Moment 2 (11. f6): When my opponent played f6, I was reminded of Ben Finegold’s advice of never playing f6. It is such a weakening move. We have castled opposite sides, so my obvious plan is to attack his king. Playing a move like f6 weakens their bishop and their king side in general, in addition to restricting their knight and queen to develop. I then played Qh5 to induce another pawn move. They again moved their f pawn, which makes their previous move just a waste of tempo. I am now in the driver's seat, with all pieces developed and pointed towards the black king.

Key Moment 3 (14. Bc4): They played Bc4, and I immediately went Ng5. Only then did I realise, to my horror, that I could have simply captured the bishop on c4—if the knight recaptured, Bxf6 would attack both the queen and the knight, winning a clear piece. However, as my opponent spent time thinking, I began to see that the move I played was just as lethal, if not more. The idea was simple: if he took my light-squared bishop, as happened in the game, I would capture on f6 with mate on h7 looming. He would be forced to give up his queen to stay alive, after which it was only a matter of technique to convert the win.

Overall, game 2 was quite good except for one move I missed in the opening. I was not worse in any position.

Semi Finals: Statistics vs Economics

Going into the semis, my nerves had settled as I had just won the quarters. I was playing with the black pieces for the first time. Opponent surprised me by playing 1.b3. It is an interesting setup as it doesn’t immediately fight for the centre, and therefore it is not advantageous. Players usually rely on grinding down the opponent in the middle game and chipping at the centre using moves like c4 and b4. Shoutout to my uncle who play these fianchettoed bishop setups a lot, and having played him multiple times I know the positions that I feel comfortable in. So instead of taking the centre with the e and d pawn, I used my d and c pawn, developing my knight, and moving the e pawn only later in the game.

Key Moment 1 (7. Qc2): This move was played quite quickly, which makes me wonder whether it was planned or my opponent just mixed up some move order, because I could just take the knight, which I did, and ruin his pawn structure on the king’s side. I didn’t discuss the game with my opponent but I think he deliberately did that to open up the g file for his rook, which combined with the dark squared bishop would threaten my king if I were to castle that side. But, anticipating this I did two super important things: one, I never released the tension in the middle of the board. It is quite normal for lower-rated players to just trade pawns and get some clarity on the board, but more often than not it is just bad. My pawns never got traded and hence kept his bishop closed. Secondly, I went on to castle queen’s side when I got the chance, away from both the rook and the bishop.

Key Moment 2 (15. Nd3): When my Knight went to that squares attacking the bishop, the best move I thought, and engine agrees, is just defending with the rook. Once the bishop moved back, my bishop took the diagonal, essentially forcing the rook to move, and some moves later the bishop moved back to where it came from, proving the previous bishop retreat to be a loss of a tempo.

Thereafter, I found some good moves as I pressed and pressed; they blundered their rook in time pressure and then I converted quite easily. A very smooth win going into the finals.

Finals: Economics vs Physical Science

The nerves of the last two days finally caught up with me, and I fell ill just after my semi-final victory. The next morning, I woke up with less than my usual appetite, but since the match was in the afternoon, I had some time to recover. By then, I was feeling much better and far less nervous. Apart from the Sicilian, the other opening I don’t have a super solid weapon against is the French Defence, so I quickly looked at a variation for it—a short 30-minute session, after which I just listened to some music before heading to the finals. I knew my opponent was very strong and didn’t have any expectations from myself; I just wanted to enjoy the game. To my surprise, for the second time in the tournament, my opponent played something I had looked at just before the game!
I vaguely knew that the line 2.b3 against the French existed and had checked it right before the match. The idea is to gambit the centre pawn for quick development, castle queen’s side, and launch an attack on the opponent’s queen. Being the finals, though, my opponent sensibly declined the gambit, and I was out of prep.

Key Moment 1 (11. Ng5): Till now in the tournament, all my opponents played wasteful moves at crucial points in the match, losing tempos and eventually games. 11.Ng5 was me doing the same thing. In my defence, I thought I was attacking the bishop, which would have to go back. I completely missed that it could also go forward, and I had to take my knight back, losing tempo and being worse out of the opening.

Key Moment 2 (15. Ne5): A very crucial moment. My bishop was under attack. I couldn’t take with the knight because my queen would hang. I couldn’t defend with the queen either, as Nxf3+, Nxf3, Bxf3, gxf3 would wreck my pawn structure and I’d suffer all game. I spent half my clock here and was quite proud to find Be2, which looks impossible at first glance (and I’m sure my opponent also thought it is, because he also took so much time to just move his knight back to where it came from in the next move). The engine, like an Indian dad, later laughed at my happiness and said Bf5 was equally good—but allowing the pawn to move forward while my knight was pinned never felt comfortable. Anyway, short on time, I blitzed the next few moves and my confidence was building. I was no longer worse.

Key Moment 3 (20. Qb6): Having played some really good moves, I was really feeling it. As soon as I saw Qb6, I definitely felt it was not a good move. Before my opponent played this, I had thought of playing Qd3 and Nc2 and bringing my rooks on the d file to really target the isolated black pawn and eventually win it. But, as soon as he played Qb6, something happened to my brain, and I thought, “Isn’t the pawn just hanging?” With the same speed I played my last few moves, I just took the pawn, and they played Rad8, pinning my bishop. I thought I could just take the bishop, and when he takes my queen, I take his. As soon as I took the bishop, I realised that at the end of this sequence, MY ROOK WAS HANGING! You see, in my mind, I thought I had already played my knight to c2, which connects and defends both my rooks, but due to the speed at which I was playing, I completely forgot that I had only thought of the move and not actually played it. I was just down an exchange, and soon I was playing with two knights and a bishop against a knight and two rooks, which is just completely losing.

Key Moment 4 (57. Rhh2): After the last key moment, I kept on fighting and manoeuvring my pieces around, and won his knight for my passed pawn. At the 57th move, he blundered his rook for my bishop, and from this position, only I can win the game, although objectively, the game is just a draw.

Important Note: From here on, I just manoeuvred with my knights and king for so many more moves. Since I have recorded all these games from my memory alone, I don’t exactly remember those 30ish moves that happened after this point.

Key Moment 5 (65. Nxf7): After shuffling back and forth, my opponent went sloppy and blundered his f pawn, and now both my knight attacks his h pawn. He played Ra6, and now I am completely winning. I just have to trade my two knights for his rook and two pawns, but I played Kf2 instead! He played Rf6, giving me yet another opportunity to win! And I just brought my horse back, missing my final chance to win the game. To be clear, I saw the winning line, but for some reason, I thought the king and two pawns vs the king and one pawn endgame was a draw. The truth is, after trading the knights for rook and a pawn, I had only considered the move f4, after which the game is really a draw (king and pawn vs a king is almost always a draw), but for some reason I never considered moving my king around the pawns, and winning the black pawn, which would result in a win. This is a very elementary-level mistake from me.

After this, the game went on for another 30ish moves, in which I blundered one of my knights and went on to lose the game.

Conclusion

I wasn’t really upset about missing the winning line—when you’re low on time, anything can happen. What does bother me is not pausing to use my time before grabbing that pawn with my bishop in the opening (Key Moment 3). That decision showed my lack of experience in real playing conditions. If I had just slowed down there, I’m quite sure I could have ground the game out to a win. At the same time, it’s also true that I was much worse and close to losing in the very first round itself. Overall, I’m quite happy with how I played through the tournament. If anything, my biggest takeaway is that my real strength is probably higher than my online rapid elo, which has been dormant for a while. I played the quarterfinals and semifinals at 92% and 93% accuracy, and I’m genuinely proud of that.