I have removed my name and my opponents name but I played white. I would be very interested in what others have to say about my game.
[Event "2006 Iowa CC Championship"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "????.??.??"]
[Round "1"]
[White ""]
[Black ""]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "A34"]
[BlackElo "1791"]
[PlyCount "53"]
[EventType "corr"]
1. c4 c5 2. g3 Nf6 3. Bg2 d5 4. cxd5 Nxd5 5. Nc3 Nc7 6. Qb3 Nc6 7. Bxc6+ bxc6
8. Nf3 Ne6 9. Qa4 Nd4 10. O-O g6 11. Ne5 Bg7 12. f4 Bxe5 13. fxe5 Bd7 14. e3
Ne6 15. b3 O-O 16. Ne4 Qc7 17. Bb2 Rab8 18. Bc3 Qb6 19. Rac1 Qb5 20. Qa3 Rfe8
21. Ba5 c4 22. Rxc4 Qxe5 23. Bc3 Qc7 24. Qb2 f6 25. Bxf6 exf6 26. Nxf6+ Kf7 27.
Nd5+ 1-0
I'm not a big fan of Bxc3 giving up the fianc. bishop. Especially since black will retain his light bishop. (you made good use of this later in the game against black.)
I prefer d3 in that situation. Complete development, castle and reassess.
Black messed up with Bxe5. 0-0 would have been better. After that you squeezed him positionally very nicely and finished off with some nice tactics.
Yes moves 24 and 25 were terrible for black. When I received the email with ... f6 I almost wrote Bxf6 back without any calculation.
The reason I chose the Qb3/Bxc6 line was that it offered me a very clear middlegame plan. I had 2 concerns:
1. The light squares around my king would be weak
2. My opponent could eaily (and later did) engineer an opposite color bishop game, which had it progressed to an endgame could have been drawn.
The advantage of the system is that with B3, Nc3-a4, Bb2 and Rc1 I can easily generate tremendous pressure against my opponents double-isolated c pawns. Ironically, the setup vaguly reminds me of playing a nimzo-indian (a defense I used to play regularily).