All moves need to be good

Unlike sports like Golf or Tennis, every move you play needs to be good, as it is hard to come back from a big blunder. I learnt this when I started playing Olympiad chess, although I still full victim to playing good moves up until a point in the game, and then going downhill.
My round 3 game from the Ryde-Eastwood tournament was an example of this. Ignoring my opponents attempt to target my e pawn, I set up a strong attack on his king with Qe3 and Nf5. However it required some exact calculation to work, I immediately began to go wrong. Bxf8 straight away was much stronger, but I decided to remove Nxf3+ as an option by exchanging on e5 first. This wasn't a real problem as after the next few moves I was still better. However I was still in 'forcing' mode when he played Rc6 (which I had foreseen), so missed the idea of b4, activating the bishop on c2. After Ng8 I wasn't worse, but thinking I had run out of strong moves, meekly swapped on f6, and then put up little resistance in the ending.


Press,Shaun - Kargosha,Bahman [C99]
Ryde Eastwood, 01.10.2016

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. O-O b5 6. Bb3 Be7 7. Re1 d6 8. c3 O-O 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Qc7 12. Nbd2 cxd4 13. cxd4 exd4 14. Nxd4 g6 15. N2f3 Bb7 16. Bd2 Nc4 17. Bh6 Rfd8 18. b3 Ne5 19. Rc1 Rac8 20. Qe2 Qb8 21. Qe3 Qa8 22. Nf5 Bf8 23. Nxe5 dxe5 24. Bxf8 Kxf8 25. Qh6+ Ke8 26. Qg7 Rc6 27. Nh6 Rd7 28. Ng8 Qd8 29. Nxf6+ Qxf6 30. Qxf6 Rxf6 31. Rcd1 Rfd6 32. f3 Rd2 33. Rxd2 Rxd2 34. Bb1 b4 35. Kh2 h5 36. h4 Kd7 37. Re3 Ke6 38. Bd3 Rxa2 39. Bc4+ Ke7 40. Rd3 Bc8 41. Rd5 Be6 42. Rc5 Kd6 43. Bxe6 Kxc5 44. Bxf7 Ra3 45. Kh3 a5 0-1