1. e4 c5 2. Nc3 e6 3. f4 d5 I didn't remember this line, so I was on my own. 4. e5 Nc6 5. Nf3 Nh6 6. Bb5 Maybe it was a positional error to give up my light-squared bishop now that my central pawns are on dark squares. But I really wanted to get in d4, and the only way I could see to do it was to exchange away Black's queen knight. 6... Bd7 7. O-O Qb6 8. Bxc6 Bxc6 9. a4 There's a game in Rowson's Chess for Zebras in which a player plays a4 "to get some squares for my knight." That's what I had in mind here. I figured I needed to establish places for my knights to go since Black has the bishoppair. 9... a6 10. d4 Nf5 11. Ne2 cxd4 12. Nexd4 Rc8 13. Kh1 Nxd4 14. Nxd4 g6 15. c3 Qd8 It looked to me like Black played this move to swing over to the king side, so I decided to get over there first. 16. Qg4 h5 17. Qh3 Bd7 Bd7 forestalls funny business like 17... Bg7 18. Nxe6 fxe6 19. Qxe6+ Qe7 20. Qxg6+ I don't know if I would have played this sac, but I sure would have looked hard at it. 18. Be3 Bg7 19. Nb3 Here I'm trying to arrange pawn on a5, bishop on b6, and knight on c5. 19... Qe7 20. a5 Bb5 Black gets one of his bishops into the game. I really underestimated how much of a pain this bishop was going to be. 21. Rfc1 Be2 22. Bb6 Bc4 23. Nd2 g5 24. Be3 Be2 25. Qg3 g4 26. Qf2 Bd3 27. Nb3 h4 28. Kg1 g3 29. hxg3 h3 30. gxh3 Rxh3 31. Qg2 Rh7 32. Nd2 Allowing a bishop check on e4 would have been fatal. My knight is basically stuck here for the duration. 32... Qf8 33. Kf2 Qe7 34. Rh1 Rxh1 35. Rxh1 Kd7 36. Qg1 I'm beginning to think about the possibility of swinging my queen to the queenside. 36... Rc6 37. Bb6 f6 38. Bd4 fxe5 39. fxe5 The position seems unbalanced to me. Both sides have possibilities. I like Black's pieces better, especially that troublesome bishop, but I'm the first to achieve a passed pawn. 39. Bxe5 Bxe5 40. fxe5 Qc5+ drops the a-pawn. 39... Qg5 40. Qe1 Qf5+ 41. Kg2 Rc8 42. Rh4 I think this was a critical move. It gives me the ability to shut down Black's attempt to penetrate on the f-file. The rook can shuttle between f4 and h4 as necessary. Also, after successfully dealing with severe time trouble in the first time control, Black immediately slowed way down. He used almost almost half of the remaining 30 minutes on the first three moves after the time control. I knew this looked like a complicated, tactical ending, and I suspected that running short on time would be deadly for either player. I put myself on a budget of 30 seconds to maybe a minute per move. 42... Qg6 43. Rf4 Rh8 44. Qf2 Kc6 Whoops, heading straight into trouble. 45. Qe3 Protecting e5 so I could play Bb6. 45... Bf5 46. Bb6 Bf8 47. Qd4 Queen and rook are now cooperating very nicely on the 4th rank. Oh yes, and also threatening mate. 47... Qh5 With a mere 90 seconds left on the clock, Black overlooked the mate threat. 48. Qa4# 1-0