My Highest Rated Opponent Ever

2 weeks ago I played a 5–round weekend tournament starting as a 6th seed, with everyone above me higher–rated by 100+ FIDE, and everyone below me was 100+ FIDE lower than me. It was a 2–day event, 3 rounds on a Saturday, 2 the next day.

I won my first two games and my friend managed to salvage a draw in the first round with the 3rd seed, meaning only 5 people had 2 out of 2. Because of my starting number I got paired against lower–rated opponent again. To add insult to injury, I had to play my friend (the one who drew in the 1st round) with black. After one mindless recapture I got nothing out of the opening, so I decided to take a lot of risk in the middlegame, which somewhat paid off (luckily), as we got to a rook endgame, where I was the one pressing. This combined with his low time led to him blundering, but I sadly threw and we drew.

It hurt, because a win would guarantee me a game vs the 1st seed — strong IM Mieszko Miś and I failed to catch him at 2 events already.

Game 4

It's day 2 and I'm finally paired against a higher–rated opponent. We had time to prepare, but with my opening repertoire build around avoiding theory, it's more like he had time to prepare.

All I know is I get White and he's an e5 player. Still I'm feeling pretty confident about my chances.

With this quick and dominant win I guarantee myself a game with the IM, as they quickly drew their game. I'd love to have White again, as I'm very confident in my openings against people up to ~2150 but I don't get many chances to try them out against someone this strong.

Game 5

We are the only players on 3.5/4 and I'm pretty sure I've already secured some kind of a prize even if I lose. But he still has to beat me;)

The opening gamble paid off, as I didn't get blown off the board in 10 moves and we got a very intersting position. After 19.e5 I thought I'm not only fighting for equality, but for an actual advantage, since I thought White has nothing on the kingside. As it turns out, it's quite the opposite — there is a lot of something on the kingside...

I actually won! I beat the highest–rated opponent I ever played! And I did so with Black pieces! Playing on my own since move 4! Words can't describe how big of an achievement that is and how big of a jump is going from beating a 2149 with White to this! And of course I got first place after this win. But let's get back to the position for a moment.

I missed my opponent's plan of g3–Kg2–Rh1–h5, which might've had cost me the game, had he started with 26.h5, not 26.Rh1. The reaction with 27...Be7–g5 was very strong by me, quickly spotting the Kh8–Rg8 manouver, and playing critical 31...g4 let me build a big enough advantage, that I'm not the one who wants to get into and endgame. But 34...Qxa4 worked out well, as my opponent wanted to hold on to the e5 pawn after 38...Nf7 with 39.Rh5, which was the last mistake of this game.

That's all!

This time a short post, I was thinking about putting games from my second tournament of this year (played the next week after this event), but there wasn't really anything special, I had a bad start with 2.5/5 and luckily managed to break even and take 4th place winning last 4 rounds, but I didn't get to play the strongest player of the tournament, due to my poor start.

Part 2 of the 100 games experiement is almost ready, I hope to publish it very soon. It takes me so long, as I've been busy with OTB play, coaching my clubmates last week, and trying to reach 2500 rapid on chess.com for almost 6 months now.

Here's the tournament, where I beat the IM: tournament link
And here's my second event, where I got 4th place: tournament link
Also the public study, with the games: study link

Thank you for reading, I hope you feel inspired and if you have any questions or notes feel free to ask me in the comments, or privately.