Tournament Experiences-First Day

I played my first day in the two day 4 game swiss tournament under 1250 with time controls of 40 moves 2 hours and 1 hour Sudden Death. I found these time controls and my forcing myself to spend time analyzing each position closer lead to better play. I found it helpful,when I came to an unclear position, to physically turn my scoresheet over and put my pencil behind my ear. This helped me slow down the game. Overall I was able to follow the thread of the games well and was only surprised by one of my opponents moves. I missed some tactical opportunities but none that changed the direction of the game.

I won both games I played. The first was against a High School Student who played the Ruy Lopez as White. I played the classical system. He played like many lower rated people on the internet play against it. He took my Knight before I put the question to the bishop and then greedily took my e5 pawn. Traditionally I see higher rated players castling first before these moves against the classical.

Paste this game segment into this pgn viewer
1. e4 {0} e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Bc5 4. Bxc6 dxc6 5. Nxe5 Qd4 6. Nd3 Qxe4+ 7. Kf1

At 7 White choices are Kf1 and Queen e2 then we trade queens and he castles by hand.See below for the opening position. I think Queen e2 was the better choice.
Fritz shows blacks position up by a pawn. Not an overwhelming advantage but now I have equalized and play with some inititive. This is an opening I want to study more as I like to play e5 to e4 and I need a solid Ruy defense. The game ended with an king side pawn push by white, I eventually got my queen free to harrass check and take some pawns on the queenside. Eventually forking the queen and king and forcing a queen trade. Then it was a simple endgame (even for me 8))with passed pawns on the queenside.

Second game was against a younger player who played the 2 knights defense aggressively and well. See the position in my screenshot. White to move.
After some initial trouble misplaying the opening, I grabbed the initiative in a mating attack and captured his queen. I'll try to post the games if I can figure them out from my game record.

Also here is how Koltanowski dealt with a simalar game position as white.

[Event "corr"]
[Site "corr"]
[Date "1940.??.??"]
[Round "0"]
[White "Koltanowski,George"]
[Black "Zeitlin,S"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "C55"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bb5 exd4 7.Nxd4 Bd7 8.Bxc6 bxc6
9.c4 Be7 10.Nc3 Nf6 11.Bg5 c5 12.Bxf6 Bxf6 13.Re1+ Kf8 14.Nf3 d4 15.Nd5 Bc6 16.Nxf6 Qxf6
17.Ne5 Qd6 18.Qh5 g6 19.Qh6+ Kg8 20.Nxc6 Qxc6 21.Re7 Re8 22.Rae1 Rxe7 23.Rxe7 Qf6 24.Re8+
1-0

[Event "San Francisco sim blind"]
[Site "San Francisco"]
[Date "1960.??.??"]
[Round "0"]
[White "Koltanowski,George"]
[Black "Richardson,Keith B"]
[Result "1-0"]
[Eco "C55"]
1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.0-0 Nxe4 5.d4 d5 6.Bb5 Bd7 7.Bxc6 bxc6 8.Nxe5 f6
9.Qh5+ Ke7 10.Qf7+ Kd6 11.Bf4 g5 12.Nc4+ 1-0



In a few hours the 2nd day of the tournament starts. I am not going to attend due to a heavy nor'easter >This is New England Slang for a snow storm with cold air out of the northeast normally accompanied by high winds and heavy accumulation<. I can't convince my wife it is a good idea for me to go.