Playing and recording longer time control chess games proved to be a very useful training method.
In game 2 I faced a subscriber (Ravi Rawatt). We went into a queen’s pawn opening and he played the Mason Attack (c4 with Bf4).
I completely misplayed and misunderstood the opening. Congratulations to Rawi. He outplayed me and outclassed me. He was better the entire game, he had more space, more active pieces, and he had a chance to win by force on one occasion.
In the end he unfortunately blundered a whole rook to a knight fork and lost a game he should have won easily.
This game is a very valuable learning resource for anyone who responds to d4 with d5. The mistakes I made here could have easily happened in a rated tournament game and now once I get into a similar position I will have learned how to play it correctly already!
Use my mistakes to improve!