Keeping composure in winning positions

Chess is hard. How often is it that you have a completely winning position, and you just blunder it away with the game ending in a draw or even worse... a loss. Fortunately for us weaklings, we can take some solace in knowing this is true for some of the best players in the world. Just today I was following match between Hans Niemann and Vidit Gujrathi at the UzChess Cup where Hans had a completely winning position and missed 47. d5! which allowed Vidit to equalize. The reason I bring this up is not because this is what happened to me in this game (thankfully!), but because this is the thought that was running through my mind the entire time I had a winning position. It can be quite distracting when you're trying to figure out how to win and your brain keeps going "don't blunder!" or "you've messed this up before!"

This will hopefully make some more sense when I discuss the game, so without further ado...

G.C. vs Mike (June 2026)

I left my last blog post mentioning that I was tied for 1st place going into this week's game. There's a 4-way tie, and since I was the lowest rated player, I knew my opponent was going to be the strongest player. I should mention that I considered not playing and taking a 0-point bye, forfeiting my ability to win the tournament. The reason is because of my work. Things were insanely busy, and taking the time to go play a chess match in the evening was definitely a dubious life choice. But I did it anyway, and I'm glad I did. To put it in a bit more perspective, I needed to work a 13-hour day the next day to make up for it.

Let's get into the game!

1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 O-O 6. Be2 Na6 7. h3 e5 8. d5 Nc5 9. Qc2 a5 10. Be3

I've actually had this position OTB before, and I responded with 10... b6!? which is inaccurate (but very natural considering it's the most common move on Lichess in this position). Having analyzed and learned from that game, I made an improvement:

10... Nh5 11. g3 f5 12. Nd2 f4 13. Bxc5 dxc5 14. g4
I spent a few minutes here thinking about 14... f3! It turns out this is the move preferred by the engine to give the f4 square to my knight. But I was a bit afraid to go into a pawn down position so early in the match against a higher rated opponent, so I played

14... Nf6

Challenge! Black just played 14... Nf6. Where does this knight belong on the board?

When I played this move, I knew I wanted to re-route my knight to the d6 square, so I was intending to play Ne8 at some point.

15. Nf3 Nd7?!
Well that wasn't a part of the plan... What happened?! Honestly I'm not too sure. Nd7 wasn't really top of mind at all, but I think my brain was so fried that for a second it focused on the defense of the e5 pawn. I was actually pretty upset after I took my hand off the piece because I was really intent on going to e8 instead. Well whatever, need to move on and play chess.

16. g5 Nb6
Re-routing to the intended d6 square.

17. O-O-O a4 18. a3 Bd7 19. Rdg1 Nc8 20. h4 Nd6

We've reached a position where I'm definitely worse. I wouldn't say it's completely losing, but white definitely has more play in the position. My only ideas are to weather an attack and try to play for b5 at some point.

21. h5
Here comes white's attack!

Qe8 22. Nh4
This is starting to look scary! I looked at a few moves in this position. I thought about the immediate b5 to start to create some counterplay and get my opponent focused on the other side of the board. I also thought about f3, sacrificing a pawn to gain some time to play b5. But eventually, I decided on

22... gxh5
My idea was that I'm up a pawn, and White can't immediately win it back. If I'm going to be losing, I might as well be try to be up material for some chances later on, which is kind of poor logic since this pawn is extremely weak. This was actually a hard decision to make because I'm giving up control of the f5 square.

23. g6!?
A bit rushed. Better was likely 23. Qd1 since now I can close up the position a bit.

23... h6

My position still feels worse, but it's much less scary. My opponent also started to appear frustrated here. They kept shaking their head and letting our deep sighs that let me know that they were not happy with how they were playing the position. The sign of tilt let me know that I should probably try to start looking for some complications and counterplay.

24. Bxh5!?
Another mistake. Allows me to win a clean pawn.

24... Nxc4
Now I'm up a pawn, and I'm feeling pretty good. I didn't think I was better yet, but I liked my chances. If I can not get checkmated or blunder material, I'll be up a pawn in an endgame.

25. Bg4 Nd6 26. Qd3
I'm not too sure what my opponent didn't like about 26. Nf5. Maybe they thought the trade weren't good since they were down material? Or maybe they missed that the e4 square would be opened up for their other knight if we trade everything off?

26... b5

It's time. My opponent isn't feeling great about his position, and his pieces are all focused on the kingside whereas my pieces are more centralized.

27. Na2?
A reactive move that doesn't really stop my plan at all. b5 is still very much playable here. But instead I went for

27... Rb8
To prepare it.

28. Bd1
Another reactive move that doesn't appear to do much for my opponent. At this point, I know I'm better, and I'm ready to step on the gas.

Now, here's a bit of context that I left out earlier. I've played this opponent before. In March of this year, we played a match where I was Black, similar to the game today. In fact, when I said earlier that I had the position after 10... Be3 on the board, it was against this exact opponent. Here's our last game with the engine analysis:

Hopefully this clarifies why I wrote the intro the way I did. On several occasions, I blundered equality. I eventually got lucky and won, but this could have easily been a draw. Still would have been a good result for me being so much lower rated, but I would much rather win the game where I'm winning!

So because of this game (and other games where I've blown winning positions...), this is where the intrusive thoughts start creeping in, and I'm finding it difficult to focus on the position.

28... b4 29. axb4 cxb4 30. b3 axb3 31. Bxb3 Ba4!

I'm actually really happy about this move. It may seem obvious to some of you, but to me it wasn't so clear. I'm better, and I have an attack. I thought that maybe there should be some other way. How can I get my queen and rooks in the game? But eventually I played this move with the idea that I'm removing a key defender of the light squares in White's camp, light squares that my knight would be able to leverage if that bishop was gone. Furthermore, the alignment of that bishop with my king makes moving my knight very difficult!

32. f3 Bxb3 33. Qxb3 Qb5
I'm ready to infiltrate.

34. Rh2??
Losing material. The idea is correct but the execution is not. 34. Rg2 would have been better but still losing for White. After which I was going to go for Rb6 and Ra8.

Challenge (easy): White just played 34. Rh2. How does Black respond to win material?

34... Qc5+
Picking up the rook.

35. Kb2 Qxg1 36. Rg2 Qd4+ 37. Kb1 Qc4 38. Qxc4 Nxc4 39. Nf5 Ne3 40. Ne7+ Kh8 41. Rh2 Rb5 42. Nc1 Ra8 43. Nb3 Ra3 44. Nc1 Rba5 45. Nc6 R5a4 46. Nd8 b3 47. Ne6 Nc4
Most of these moves are me slowing encroaching on the White king. In fact, in this position, I'm threatening an immediate mate.

48. Nxb3 Rxb3+ 49. Kc2 Rab4
Another weird OTB mouseslip (handslip?) in this game similar to Nd7 earlier... I actually went to grab the b-rook to play Rb2+, but I touched the wrong rook! And my opponent made sure to callout the touch move rule...

50. Rh1 Rxf3 51. Ra1 Rb2+ 0-1
My opponent resigned because it's mate on the next move.

My opponent was pretty mad and left immediately, so we were unable to have a post mortem unfortunately. Therefore, I decided to peek at the other board with the other players in the first place tie. I was pretty excited when I saw that it looked like a completely drawn position. They were playing a queen and pawn endgame, each with 5 pawns on the board, but there didn't appear to be any major imbalances. I assumed they would draw, but one of the players managed to win. So we split first place.

Takeaways!

My overall tournament performance this time around was very good compared to my rating (1491). My 5 games in this tournament (all featured in my blog by the way!):

• 1101 Opponent - Win
• 1534 Opponent - Win
• 1653 Opponent - Draw
• 1731 Opponent - Win
• 1723 Opponent - Win

And my rating jumped to 1657!

My major takeaway from this game was that I need to figure out how to keep my cool in winning positions and block out the intrusive thoughts. Even though it didn't lead to any blunders in this game, it certainly made it harder for me to focus on the conversion.