The Game(s) to NM

About a month ago, I was in this tournament and started off pretty well with 2/2 after a nice swindle against a NM the round before. I also took a bye in round one, so there was two games left on the last day. I decided to not worry about this board game for some time and relaxed for the rest of the night.

When I woke up, I found out that I was playing a NM from my state who I've actually beaten before a year ago! So, I was hoping that I could repeat that and finally get the title I've been chasing for so many years. I also am playing him with the same colors, so I decided to play a different line than last time since I'm sure he has some good preparation against me in that line.

Although you don't need to figure out a plan in this exact position, you need a plan eventually. Additionally, black doesn't really have a plan other than e5 and even that isn't that great for black. Hence, you have all the time in the world to find a plan and execute that plan. So, can you find the plan for white? The solution will be after this board. Anyways, I'll let you keep seeing the game:

Here, what do you think I played? If you want a hint, think about what I've been trying to prevent for basically the whole game. I've linked the rest of the game below:

A very tragic tactical blunder. Additionally, it's even more tragic knowing that I had all the time in the world, which implies that I could just play Kh1 and then do everything and never hang any tactics.... The funny thing is that in my last tournament game I tried doing this exact thing in a pleasant position, and it ended up backfiring on me due to the game landing in an endgame, which means that a further away king is worse. Just goes to show how complex chess is. Anyways, I lost my last game of this tournament against another NM due to me being an absolute idiot by going from a +3 position to giving him a slightly better position, then blundering mate in one right after, but that's for another post.

Now, you may think that this post is done, right? Not really. After this aforementioned tournament I had one more tournament before I got the break from tournaments I am currently on. I somehow got myself into this 'game to NM' situation once again, if I am just able to beat this 10 year old NM who is really solid and good at endgames. I mean, technically the estimator said I would be at like 2198 but I can just beat a 1900 and withdraw my next tourney if I got into that situation so yeah. I knew his preparation against my opening/the catalan was pretty bad, so I did some revision of that line and that was my prep. Unfortunately, he surprised me by playing the slav. The above game was also a slav, but that time I prepped my opponent and hence knew all the lines freshly. This time it didn't really work like that, so I just decided to play my normal line. I plan to play these lines evenly in the long run, so I better get to memorizing the theory for the other line. Anyways, here is the second game:

I've just reached a completely winning position against this kid, and now this is my opportunity. If I just find the tactic, I am done. I win. However... in the game, I played Rc1 in like 10 seconds and went further into this drawn ending. If you were wondering what the tactic that I missed is, it's Rd1+ Kh7 e5. There is no intermediate rook check due to my e3 bishop, so he is just down a knight there. If I knew there was a tactic here, I mean the solution is so simple. It's something even like a 1500 uscf can find. And yet... Anyways, here's the rest of the game:

I mean I just missed the moment and significantly underestimated most of the aspects of his position. Sometimes, I need to do the difficult thing in order to draw, and I need to learn how to accept that and just do the hard thing rather than the easy thing of just postponing and getting into a practically difficult position that I somehow thought wasn't practically difficult due to me being terrible at practically evaluating endgames. This loss wasn't even a bad game from me if you ignore the tactic, but it hurts just writing about it knowing I was so close, yet so far. Me and my friend were analyzing the game while going to Chick-fil-A and seeing that was very disheartening, especially after checking the estimator. I'm currently like 25 points away because of me drawing an incredibly underrated 2000 later in that tournament, which feels like a significantly bigger gap psychologically after these two tournaments.

If you want to see more of my posts, you can check out https://chessgrindr.substack.com/. Also, if you want to support my journey, drop a like on this and maybe I'll get that title one day...