Two training games against IM Mat Bobula. One was the Tarrasch French, the other the Blumenfeld variation of the Meran Semi-Slav.
Both games were played in 15 minutes with a 5 second increment.
Game 1 starts at 06:10
Game 2 starts at 31:20
Mat is a very strong player, an international master, and he kindly agreed to play against me. He has a twitch account and a YouTube channel of his own. He has streamed our games so make sure to check out his commentary on the games as well.
Here are Mat’s Twitch and YouTube accounts: www.twitch.tv/matbobula
YouTube: Mat Bobula’s Chess School
He is also a chess coach, and he does very instructive and fun streams!
Our games were very fun and I learned a lot from them. I prepared for him today, and we ended up playing exactly what I had prepared for. I had white in the first game. We entered the tarrasch French. He played c5, and we got a middlegame in which he had the IQP.
I managed to blockade the pawn and played well at start, but then made one horrible move and all was lost. The second game was a very theoretical Meran Semi-Slav. He went for the Blumenfeld variation in which black is a pawn up (and a passed pawn too), but his king is stuck in the center for the whole game.
Playing against a very strong opponent, I just crumbled under the pressure and he got an overwhelming attack. I managed to sort of defend, but entered a dead lost endgame and soon resigned.
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