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I hit a peak rating of 1673 around the middle of June then immediately plummeted to just over 1600. This Alapin game, while not hugely instructive, is one of those game that just makes you feel much better when you're in a slump.
I mostly play the Alapin or the delayed Alapin to avoid getting into too much horrible theory and I watched a Jonathan Schrantz video on it a few months back and really wanted to get it on the board. Essentially 2...d6 opens up the black Queen and 3 c3 opens up the diagonal for my queen to deliver a check. So after 3...Nf6 4 Bf2, the e pawn cannot be taken because it loses the horsey to Qa4+.
Sadly at my level 2...Nc6 is somewhat more common, which prevents this from working, even if you reach a similar position, so it was a pleasant surprise when the first game I ever managed to get Bf2 on the board, my opponent took a humble 6.6 seconds to hang their horsey.
There isn't a huge amount to talk about for the rest of the game. I largely just slowly traded down. The other instructive moment I'd like to focus on is 28 b4?! I could see that in the long run my b pawn was going to be the main weakness of the position; as long as black's bishop remains on the diagonal, my horsey is tied to defending the pawn, else black will very quickly gain 2 connected queenside past pawns. I saw this very clearly, so why b4?! I think my logic was that I wanted to lock the structure and continue to control the only open file on the board. But b4 doesn't really do that? Once they've prevented being backrank mated, my opponnent could probably still just play a5 at some point. So my instinct was right, I think, to try and address the Queenside pawns, but the solution was wrong. More logical, I think, would be 28.b3. Effectively this freezes their pawns, neither can advance for the moment without massively conceding more material, but i reserve the option to advance my pawns and break later, and resolve the threat posed by the bishop.
While I was still significantly better at this point, the constant threat of Bb2 makes it not so trivial to actually convert the position. My nishop had very little scope with so many black pawns on light squares and my horsey was constantly tied down to the b2 square. So I continued my plan to break open the King side with f5 to try let my bishop roam more freely. If they take the pawn, my bishop is a lot freeer and constantly threatening to come to c8 and begin clearing up the Queenside pawns, at which point I would be winning. If they don't take, then I can take and after the recapture, the e6 pawn is weak, and there are ideas of h4,h5 to break up the remaining Kingside pawns and again let my Bishop roam free. I didn't actually see the possibility until my opponent played it, but 34...e5 is of course completely losing. The discovered check after 35 f6+ mean that my pawn will transition to a Queen and the game is over.
[Event "Rated Rapid game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/rIjoFAMe"]
[Date "2022.07.07"]
[White "MattingtonBear890"]
[Black "peterschaak2020"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.07.07"]
[UTCTime "22:18:19"]
[WhiteElo "1602"]
[BlackElo "1576"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+6"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-6"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "900+10"]
[ECO "B50"]
[Opening "Sicilian Defense: Delayed Alapin"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]
1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. c3 { B50 Sicilian Defense: Delayed Alapin } Nf6 4. Be2 Nxe4?? { (0.00 → 5.46) Blunder. g6 was best. } (4... g6 5. O-O Bg7 6. Bb5+ Nc6 7. d4 O-O 8. d5 a6 9. Be2) 5. Qa4+ Bd7 6. Qxe4 Bc6 7. Qc2 e6?! { (4.39 → 6.76) Inaccuracy. e5 was best. } (7... e5 8. O-O Nd7 9. d4 e4 10. Ne1 d5 11. dxc5 Nxc5 12. Na3) 8. O-O Be7 9. d4 cxd4 10. cxd4 Nd7 11. Nc3 Rc8 12. Bf4 O-O 13. Qd2 Nf6 14. Bg5 d5 15. Ne5 a6 16. Rfc1 b5 17. a3 Re8 18. Bxf6 Bxf6 19. Nxc6 Rxc6 20. Nd1 Qb6 21. Rxc6 Qxc6 22. Rc1 Qb6 23. Rc5 Be7 24. Rc2 Bf6 25. Qc3 Bxd4 26. Qc6 Qxc6 27. Rxc6 Ra8 28. b4?! { (3.99 → 2.72) Inaccuracy. b3 was best. } (28. b3 Kf8) 28... h6 29. Kf1 Kf8 30. Bg4?! { (2.93 → 2.00) Inaccuracy. Bd3 was best. } (30. Bd3 Be5) 30... Ke7?! { (2.00 → 2.90) Inaccuracy. a5 was best. } (30... a5 31. Rc1 axb4 32. axb4 Ra4 33. Rb1 Be5 34. Ne3 Bc3 35. Nc2 Ra2 36. Ne1 Ra4 37. Nd3) 31. f4? { (2.90 → 1.41) Mistake. Rc7+ was best. } (31. Rc7+ Ke8 32. Be2 Ra7 33. Rxa7 Bxa7 34. Ke1 f5 35. Kd2 e5 36. Ne3 g6 37. a4 bxa4) 31... Kd7 32. Rc2 Rc8?? { (1.35 → 3.81) Blunder. f5 was best. } (32... f5) 33. Rxc8?! { (3.81 → 2.57) Inaccuracy. Rd2 was best. } (33. Rd2 Bb6 34. Rxd5+ Ke7 35. Rd3 Rc4 36. g3 f5 37. Bf3 g5 38. Rc3 gxf4 39. Rxc4 bxc4) 33... Kxc8 34. f5 e5?? { (2.99 → 13.33) Blunder. Kd7 was best. } (34... Kd7 35. Bh5 Ke7 36. Ke2 Be5 37. h3 Bf4 38. Nc3 Bc1 39. Nb1 Bb2 40. Kd1 Bd4 41. Kc2) 35. f6+ Kd8 36. fxg7 { Black resigns. } 1-0