GG, but you missed a mate in 2. :)
Bird's Opening Gambit
Sort:
mmm, good point. After 29... Rxf3 I knew the game was over so I stopped thinking. My opponent took excessive amounts of time for each move (and there was no time cap) so I was ansty to make my moves and get out (as much as I love chess, I don't appreciate spending 8 or 9 hours playing indoors when it's sunny and in mid 80's). Ironically, had I took more time to think, I would have finished quicker.
This was my very first tournament, and I was told that the competition here was very good and I shouldn't expect much and my goal for the day should be to learn a lot. The person who was telling me this didn't realize I've been studying articles and playing against so many people at chess.com! I managed to take 2.5 points out of 5, which made me pretty happy. Not a bad way to start officially competing!
Overall, I had played very solidly, my two losses were very close (I was 1 move away from mating in one of my games). But after the first 4 games, I hadn't yet made one of those moves that puts a chill down your spine, the kind of move that you learned from watching the Game of the Week. But in game 5, I got my chill.
I've been studying Bird's Opening and Bird's Opening Gambit, f4 when white and f5 when playing against 1. e4 . I use Birds when white confidently, but using it as a Gambit with black has led to some disastrous games in the past. I didn't use it in my other games, but finally I decided to give it a try- why study and learn something and never use it, right? Here goes: