My game from earlier today

I once heard an IM get asked the question "how do you beat lower rated players?" His answer is very interesting, and correct I believe. He said "just give them a lot of choises. Make them choose as much as you can, don't force things, and they will normally make a mistake."

Well today I played a much higher rated player, and I drew. But really I think that his mistake was he didn't mix it up at all. None of my moves were hard to find, and nothing really was happening in the position for most of the game. We were looking at a line after the game that Fritz called even, but it was very dynamic. I think it would have been more correct to go into this even line, where both sides have chances, then to go into the line where he was up half a pawn, but all of my moves were obvious.

However, I am proud of myself because I was up on the clock during the game. When he had the option to mix it up he only had 5 minutes left, while I had 15. This also led to him not wanting to make it complicated. I believe if he had had another 5 minutes on the clock he would have played the complicating move, and would have had more winning chances.

Though, he certainly had no losing chances in the line he played, and if I didn't know my rook endings quite well I certainly could have lost the position, so I can't blame him too much for his decision. Anyways here is the game:

NN 2225 - SirKy 1500*

*Note the above are ICC ratings, which are probably about 200 points higher than the corresponding OTB (Over the Board) ratings would be. Well, except mine because I have played 3 games in that time control, all about 2 years ago.