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I managed to make it to the third and final round of the Team Australia, 2022 Australia Day Tournament (Division 3) on chess.com! This is the penultimate match for me – the sixth of seven (one of the contestants has dropped out) and I’ve managed to win my first five matches!

I entered the final round with the lowest rating. The contestants:

• vitualis (the chess noob!) – 1158
• @gothedogs – 1159
• @KnightBeatsAll – 1186
• @edwardsl – 1229
• @flylikeaD6 – 1266

At this point, I think I’m guaranteed to come within the top two and getting a (virtual) medal! I’m going to covering each of my matches, win or lose, in this round.

Match 6 (https://www.chess.com/game/daily/426285967) was against @edwardsl – I had the black pieces and they white. My final two matches are against this player!

My opponent opened with the King’s Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. f4) and I accepted the gambit (2… exf4). Rather than damage kingside pawn structure, I opted to not immediately defend the captured pawn with the typical g5, and instead, played the Modern Defense with the immediate (3… d5).

What ensued was a relatively balanced game in the middle. Neither of us deviated far from equality, even with some inaccuracies in play. In the later middle game, we end up trading most of our pieces, and end up in an endgame where we each had both rooks, but I was up a pawn.

My opponent offered a draw – I declined. I couldn’t quite see how, but I thought that surely, I should be the one with the advantage? Stockfish agreed, though it was close and arguably tricky. The evaluation was between [-1] and [-2]. Pushing on, my opponent made an aggressive forward advance with their king. I thought this was probably a mistake and chased their king with rooks and pawn. Stockfish increasingly favoured my position, all the way to about [-4.5]. However, my opponent’s strategy was correct as on move 37, I blundered the position – an inaccurate rook move resulted in the evaluation dropping back to equality. We play on – each of us losing a rook and most of our pawns. However, it became increasingly clear that the game was indeed a draw, and with fewer pieces on the board, any further blunders were unlikely. So, on move 50, we virtually shake hands and mutually agree to a draw!

What does this mean? Even if I lose the next and final match with @edwardsl, I will come second in the tournament! If we draw again, and @edwards1 wins all their matches to come, then I might come first or second, depending on how chess.com calculates the tie-break. If we draw again and my opponent loses even one match against the other opponents, I come first!

[Event "TA 2022 Australia Day Tournament Div 3  ratings up to 1150 - Round 3"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.08.25"]
[Round "-"]
[White "edwardsl"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[Tournament "https://www.chess.com/tournament/ta-2022-australia-day-tournament-div-3-ratings-up-to-1150"]
[Timezone "UTC"]
[ECO "C36"]
[ECOUrl "https://www.chess.com/openings/Kings-Gambit-Accepted-Modern-Abbazia-Defense-5.Bc4"]
[UTCDate "2022.08.25"]
[UTCTime "13:14:03"]
[WhiteElo "1229"]
[BlackElo "1223"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[Termination "Game drawn by agreement"]
[StartTime "13:14:03"]
[EndDate "2022.09.06"]
[EndTime "20:16:15"]
[Link "https://www.chess.com/game/daily/426285967"]

1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Nf3 d5 {King's Gambit Accepted: Modern Defense [-0.22]} 4. exd5 Nf6 5. Bc4 Nxd5 6. O-O Nf6 $2 {A mistake [+0.85]. This was an overly conservative move after capturing the pawn that gives White the initative.} 7. d4 Bd6 8. Ng5 O-O 9. Bxf4 Bg4 10. Qd2 h6 11. Bxd6 $6 {An inaccuracy [-1.00]. Black recaptures with development.} 11... Qxd6 12. Nf3 Ne4 13. Qe3 Nf6 14. Ne5 Be6 15. Nd2 Nc6 16. Ndf3 Bxc4 17. Nxc4 Ng4 18. Qe4 Qe6 19. Nfe5 $4 {A blunder [-2.51] as a queen trade would result in Black having an isolated pawn on the e-file} 19... Ncxe5 20. Nxe5 Nxe5 21. Qxe5 Qxe5 22. dxe5 Rfe8 23. Rae1 Re6 24. Re2 Rae8 25. Ref2 R8e7 26. Rd1 Rxe5 27. Rd8+ Re8 28. Rd7 R8e7 29. Rfd2 Re1+ 30. Kf2 R1e2+ 31. Kf3 R2e3+ 32. Kf2 Re2+ 33. Kf3 R7e3+ 34. Kf4 g5+ 35. Kf5 Re5+ 36. Kg4 f5+ 37. Kh5 Re6 $4 {A blunder [0.00]. I lose my advantage in the rook and pawn endgame back to a draw.} 38. Rxe2 Rxe2 39. Rxc7 Rxg2 40. Kg6 Kf8 41. Kxf5 Rxh2 42. Rxb7 Rxc2 43. Rxa7 Rxb2 44. a4 Rb4 45. a5 g4 46. Ra8+ Kg7 47. a6 g3 48. Ra7+ Kf8 49. Ra8+ Kg7 50. Ra7+ {[%c_effect
g7;square;g7;type;DrawBlack,f5;square;f5;type;DrawWhite] We mutually agree to a draw [0.00]} 1/2-1/2