1. e4 c5
2. Nf3 g6
Usually I play Nc6 here but thought I'd try my luck with the hyper-accelerated dragon to aviod such annoying systems as the Rossalimo. (3. Bb5)
3. d4 cxd4
4. Qxd4 Nf6
Almost already I decide just to stick with the regular accelerated from now on!
5. Bc4
Already I'm out of the book (I actually have an accelerated dragon book but it only covers. 5. e5, 5. Bb5 and 5. Nc3) but that's probably for the best. I like figuring out everything on my own.
5. ... Nc6
Seems to make sense.
6. Qd3 Bg7
Gotta keep developing
7. Nc3 O-O
8. Bg5
At the moment this move doesn't worry me too terribly & I'm starting to feel pretty comfortable in the opening.
8. ... d6
a developing move with the idea of Bg4, BxN & then trading my knight for a bishop & attacking white's queen with my rook
9. a3 Bg4
10. O-O
Here, I briefly dabbled with Rc8
first, trying to see if I could get away with BxN QxB (or pxB) and then forking queen & bishop with a discovered attack on the biship. But IMO this would have been a bad move as white could just retreat the bishop & maintain the pressure on my kingside. Sashie's too good for me to try to get away with such a transparent & easily parried attack & playing such a way in general is poor form & poor practice.
10. . ... Bxf3
11. Qxf3 Ne5
12. Qe2 Nxc4
13. Qxc4 Rc8
14. Qd3
I know feel like I have at least equality. What to do now...
My first thought was Qb6 but Rb1 seems to solve that (and gets his rook out of my bishop's diaognol) and now my queen appears fairly silly there & can easily be driven off.
Re8 seems like the most "principled" move (develop all pieces before trying any fancy stuff). I also considered Nd7 with the idea of coming to e5 or c5 but I wanted to back up the vulnerable & important e-pawn first. If Nd7, white's Nd5 seems very annoying. Re8 seems slow but with white's menacing white squared bishop gone I don't see anything wrong with it.
14. ... Re8
15. Be3
I expected my opponent to develop one of his rooks instead. This move removes the threat of BxN and attacks my a-pawn. Sacs of the a-pawn don't look sound so I figure I'll play the logical looking a6 (moving the object of attack & limiting white's knight somewhat). What's next? h3, f3, f4 (none of those look particularly good for White)? Maybe one of the rooks being developed? It looks like I have a slight edge as my bishop appears to me better than White's. I could be missing something but everything seems pretty calm right now.
15 ... a6
16. Rfd1
Seems like a solid enough move, putting his rook on file with my queen & eventually perhaps threating to push the e-pawn. I only see one "candidate move" for myself here. Qc7, pinning the knight to the c-pawn, eyeing the h2 pawn with a few tricks in mind, the least of which is threating to trade knight for bishop, then bishop for knight & potentially winning a pawn, the most of which probably won't happene because Sashie won't go for it (I'm always open for others to make mistakes though
).
16. ... Qc7
17. Rc1
this is the move I imagined would be most likely. I'm tired, looking at it now Ng5 seems kind of weak, white simply has too many options. Maybe Nd7 is better. Fortunately I have 14 days to think about it.
ok, it's morning now, and my brain's as fresh as it's gonna be with a noisy baby present & uncertain future looming.
this kind of reminds me of the game logs I wrote when I was playing Civ 2. anywayz... hmm, I'm still not feeling super inspired here, I'm not so sure why I was hatin' on Ng5 last night. Regardless, I'm simply not in the right state of mind for a complex middlegame right now. I'll be back!
ok, it's now one or two days later. I didn't get much sleep last night but I had good sleep/good dreams & I feel overall better. With slightly fresher eyes I'm gonna ditch Ng5 & go with the boring looking but solid looking Qc4. Looks to me like he has to trade queens, allowing me to double rooks on the valueble c-file. I think I definitely have a slight edge here, if I can just maintain it!
18. Bc4
For some reason I didn't expect this, I suppose it's better for black than trading, still, I feel pretty confident in my position. I'm considering Nd7 (with plans to hit e5 later). Another idea is Rc6 with the idea of tripling on the c-file. I probably will choose the first option though, I don't like the idea of white playing e5.
Hmm, 11 days left & now I'm thinking of b5, well not too seriously but just as an idea. e5 doesn't scare me anymore, not sure why it did. Nd7 allows Ne5 which, I think, will be far more annoying in the long term. Rc6 can allow white to gain some time by trading queens though I'm still not sure how much good it does him. I will probably play Nc6 but I'm still not 100% yet.
Ok, I finally went with Rc6. Worst case (I hope) is that I lose a tempo if QxQ. 18. ... Rc6
19. Qf3
Hmm, is this dangerous? I didn't anticipate it. It doesn't appear dangerous at first glance.
Too tired. Will have to wait on this one. This game is very important. If I lose, I'm out of the running. Gotta wait.
Ok, still tired. It's quarter after 1AM but I feel like played chess!
Qf3 doesn't appear dangerous. I simply triple the rooks. e5 doesn't seem dangerous. Nd5 doesn't seem dangerous. They do both, however, seem to lead to a drawish endgame which will be very, very difficult for me to win (assuming Sashie plays well). Which sucks cause I need to win otherwise I won't advance. For this reason I'm going to think on this a bit more.
It's four days into my move now, I'll play Rec8. 19. ... Rec8
20. Nd5
Sashie played this rather quick. Then again, he had plenty of time to think while I tried in vain to search for a powerful bone crushing move. Looks like I have to play knight takes knight here, otherwise bad things happen to good people! 20. ... NxN
21. pxN
I'm playing R6c7, the only move that doesn't lose the exchange.
22. b3
Another forcing move by white. Black's only move that doesn't lose the queen is Qb5. Sashie's talking smack (polite friendly smack of course
) and I'm worried there's something I'm not seeing
. 22. ... Qb5
23. c4
My move triggered this conditional move. What I expected (I predicted from when I made move 19). I now have three moves - Qh5 (which looks pretty bad), Qd7 (which looks the best) and Qe8 (which looks ok but not as good as Qd7). Wait a minute, WTH am I talking about, Qd7 is terrible & loses the exchange to Bb6. Hmm, Qe8 seems to leave me positionally worse but better than Qh5 (where my queen can get completely shut out of the game).
Maybe Sashie's right, the tide has turned somewhat & while I'm not losing materially he probably has at least a 3/4 pawn's worth positional advantage.
Oh well, no point in dilly-dallying. Qd7 & Qh5 both seem to suck and there are no other options. 23. ... Qe8
24. Bb6
Forcing my rook to move. 24. ... Rd7 White is potisionally dominant but if I can break out I'm alright.
25. Re1
As I said to Sashie in the game "I have more than one or two options for a change so I think I'm going to think for a bit here!". I'm thinking of Qf8 followed by Bf6 & Qg7 or Qh6. Bf6 first also seems playable.
Wait a minute... what about Bb2, winning a pawn? White doesn't have that dominating a position that I cannot afford to take a pawn. Also, this hobbles white's queenside pawn chain. I think I must do this, it may not prove enough for a win but it's my only chance not to be ground down either into a loss or a draw.
I'm going to wait a few days though, I've been moving quickly for a while now.
5-6 hours later : Screw a few days. I went over it a bit & I don't see any refutation that gets me mated or even loses the pawn back. This is pretty much more only shot not to lose or draw (which, under the circumstances is just as bad). I have to go for it!
25. ... Bb2
26. Rb1
Opps, I was shortsighted and missed the basic Rb1 followed by b4 if I take the a-pawn and the bishop is lost. However, I was right in that I wasn't losing anything by trying. At least as far as I can see. I forced the rook onto a slightly less useful file & now I can bring the bishop back to f6 (where I was planning on planting it to make way for the queen on g7 anyway).... or perhaps Be5? Hmm, I'm going to sleep on it.
I'm deciding to go with Bf6 instead of e5. The bishop is harder to attack here & out of the way of any later exchange sacrifices Sashie may come up with (well except the immediate QxB which doesn't seem very good). 26. ... Bf6
27. Re2
27. ... Qf8 (with the plan of Qg7 and contesting the bishops annoying placement on b6, all while making sure the e-pawn is guarded adaquetely).
28. Rbe1
Makes sense. What is there besides Qg7? This position looks drawish (though a computer would probably deem white as having a slight positional advantage). 28. ... Qg7
29. Qh3
Oh cripes. I did not see that.
Looks like I have to sacrifice the e-pawn & brace myself & hope to come out alive & still able to somehow get a draw.
29. ... e6
30. pxp
30 ... pxp (what else is there?)
31. Qxe6+
Qf7 seems more active than Kh8. With a pawn down maybe I can still draw and at least now my position isn't so passive! 31. ... Qf7
32. Qxf7+
KxQ seems more natural than RxQ 32. ... KxQ
33. Rd1
I am playing Re7, not sure what else to do, it's potentially trappy if white plays Red2 followed by my doubling of rooks followed by Kf1? (... Bc3!). Of course hoping for this type of thing is no way to play chess but still, no matter what I don't seem to lose anything (besides the pawn I'm already down). I'm lost with perfect play from both sides so my main plan now is to plan odd looking but sound moves & hope Sashie gets greedy, overconfident or simply careless. It's my only chance to win. 33. ... Rd7
34. Red2
Sashie played this quickly (it's about 10 minutes after my last move).
No choice but to go along with my plan now of Rce8. I don't think I lose another pawn whether white plays g3, f3 or f4 and if white quickly plays Kf1 then I'm back in the game (wishful thinking I'm sure though it's good to have dreams
). 34. ...Rce8
35. Be3
Seems like the only playable continuating is Bg5. 35. ... Bg5
36. Rxd6
Simplifying. And why not, he's up a pawn. 36. ... BxB
37. fxe3 Rxe3
37. fxe3 Rxe3
38. Rd7+ R8e7
39. RxR Rb1
somewhere after this move I started blitizng & ended up losing. There's no guarentee that taking my time would have resulted in a different result however but it couldn't have hurt.
). IMO, taking with this knight gives me a beter atatck and gives whit alot more chances to go wrong(er). White is in really deep trouble. Looks like, at the very least, I may be able to win another piece. This is all from my superficial, half-intuitive analysis but I just don't see alot of good moves for white here. Last night I was thinking about d4 and Qd5. What the heck was I thinking? Qa5 threating d4 seems much stronger. Like resignworthy strong. We'll see. I'm still going to be careful & not get cocky. 
