I played in two tournaments lately and these where my worst ones in the last 5 years! This must has to do with the painfull brake-up with my girlfriend but this is a discussion for another thread! (about the psucollogical impact that this may have to our chess perfomance!)

In the last round i wanted to win so that i could lessen my Elo losses and the most important to gain some self-confidence again! The opponent was not so weak but not too strong (about my Elo level) and i had the black pieces with which i have a more solid repertoire and more confidence (i had terrible memories with the white pieces!). 

So the game started: 1.e4 e6! 2.d4 d5 3.e5 c5 4.c3 and now, althought i was talking to myself all the time to be patient and try to concentrate i accidentally touched the b8 knight and when i realised that ,i stood still with my hand frosen for 1 minute or so. What is the big issue you may wonder! The thing is that i have always played 4...Qb6! with Bd7-Bb5 next! And now i didn't know what to do! So, i was out of my repertoire already! I tried to calm down and said to myself that 4...Nc6 is now the best move (4...Na6 and Nd7 could not be right!) and the natural French continuation and so: 4...Nc6! 5.Nf3 and after 10-15 minutes of trying to remember what i have read in Watson's Dangerous Weapons after 5...Nh6!? i decided to play 5...Bd7 with in mind some ideas i saw in Ziegler's dvd and after deciding that it was to risky to play a sharper variation (5...Nh6) with no experience at all.

So, 5...Bd7 6.Be2 (with a big relief in my face, because i didn't want to face the sharper 6.Bd3) 6...Nh6 7.a3!? I was to sceptical at this stage because i thought that my opponent was mixing two systems, but i tried to remain calm and look at the good things of my position. I played the next 5-6 moves with confidence because they looked typical and natural.

7...Nf5 8.b4 cxd4 9.cxd4 Be7 10.O-O O-O 11.Nc3 Rc8 12.Bb2 and now, having no experience in this position i sunk into deep thought and after all i played what seemed the most natural plan: 12...f6! 

(12...g5 was one of my ideas and i calculated 13.g4 Nh6 14.h3 f5! 15.exf6 Bxf6 16.Na4 and i didn't have the confidence to try to fing out what was going on here and finally chose the most natural path)

13.Na4 fxe5 14.dxe5 Be8! and at this stage i was very happy with the opening accident that happened to me because this seemed a very promising position! Now my opponent sunk in deep thought while i was seeing lines such as 15.Rc1 Bh5 16.Nc5 Bxc5! 17.Rxc5 Nh4! and White cannot escape an ending with the bad Bb2 against a good knight because after 18.Nd4 it comes the strong 18...Qg5!

I saw also another beautifull variation that raised my adrenaline levels! What about 16.h3? now i cannot play Nh4 but i step-by-step saw the line 16...Bxf3! 17.Bxf3 Bg5! and if 18.Rc2 now 18...Ncd4! is good again with the same-type favourable ending. But the detail here is that after 18.Nc5!? Bxc1 19.Nxe6 Bxb2! is the sock-move with a Queen sacrifice that i saw! I had a great confidence now and it seemed that my opponent was using a lot of time at this point because he was trying to fing a way out of these bad future events! And he shoked me with:

15.h3!! a deep profilactic move! "Wow!" i thought,"the man can play good chess!" and all my pride about my position vanished suddenly because my Bh5 plan couldn't work now and his plan Rc1-Nc5 looked promising. I thought now about 15...a5 16.b5 Nb8 with Nd7 or 15...Bg6 but nothing pleased me. I kept searching for an idea while i was having bad thoughts about losing again and "my stupid" 4...Nc6 move at a game that i supposed to be very carefuull etc etc...and then it came! An idea that was looking ridicullus at first which i decided to play just to confuse my opponent and end the tournament in an entertaining way not seeing that the idea was actually very very sound and strong!

15...Na5!! now practically only one move: 16.bxa5 Qxa5 and now again forced: 17.Nc3 Rxc3 18.Bxc3 Qxc3 with an exchange down but with a threat on a3. Now i thought of 19.Qd3 Qxd3 20.Bxd3 and wondering why on earth i had sacrificed the exchange when i realised that after 20...b6! 21.Rc1 Bc5! i had a great and sound position with no open files for white and a potential target on a3!

My opponent used again a large amount of time time and finally preffered 19.Rb1 b6 20.Rb3 but i played now 20...Qc7! 21.Qd2 Bc5 22.Bd3 Qe7 23.Bxf5 Rxf5 24.Re1 Bd7 25.Nd4 Rf8 26.Rg3 Bxa3! 27.Ra1 Bb4 28.Qe3 a5 29.Rc1 Bc5 and won after 15 more moves! My best French-game ever! A creative effort under heavy psycollogical pressure! Yes, the French defence can do that!

Just to end i shall point out another nice variation that my opponent showed to me after the game in the post-mortem. I proposed that he may play another move order of his plan with 13.Rc1 but then he said that i should not exchange on e5 and play 13...Be8! 14.Na4? Ncxd4! So, it seems that my creative 15...Na5!! is the solution to this plan by White. I don't know the theoriticall significance of the move but i wanted to share with you a really beautifull game (imo! )