From Completely Lost to...Winning?! (Round 3 Recap)
Welcome back to the blog! I am going to continue with my tournament recap from the recent IM Norm Invitational that I played in about two weeks ago. If you didn't see the previous round 2 recap then you can check it out here: CLICK ME. Spoiler alert: I lost my second game and have 1 win and 1 loss so far. Time to start the comeback 
In the third round I was paired against streamer and content creator FM James Canty. I had the black pieces this game. Let's get into it!
Ok, so objectively my position is lost. I'm down a pawn, my king is weak, my pieces are terrible (the rook on a7 looks silly) and White has a great position and piece coordination. All I can do here is try to hold things together as best as possible and see what happens later on. My one hope was that James would get over-confident at some point and make a mistake. Alternatively, I figured that if I can survive into an endgame, even if I'm down a pawn, then I probably have better chances to hold. This is for two reasons: 1. In the endgame with less pieces on the board my weak king will not matter as much 2. James seems to be a player who is stronger with calculation and middlegames than in the endgame phase. Let's see how this plan slowly works it's way into happening.
Now for an exercise position. It's White to move. The material is now equal rather than being ahead an extra pawn as you have been the whole game. You're probably feeling a bit dejected based on the new situation you're facing and the fact that winning the game is unlikely at this point. However, you can still draw rather than lose! How to do that? What should White play in the position?
Somehow I was able to turn my completely lost position on move 15 into a win 36 moves later. This game definitely was a turning point in the tournament for me from a mental-game side of things. If I had lost this game then my chances at a norm would be essentially crushed within the first three games. After turning this game around and winning though, I was on cloud 9 and felt great going into the next game with 2/3 points so far. But that next game is for another blog 
I need to score 5 more points out of the remaining 6 games to secure the coveted IM norm! Will I get the norm? Check in with the future blogs to see how the other games go!
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