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I went into a slump for a while, dropped about 125 points from my peak 1725. Took a break for a few weeks, came back, and now I'm playing much better again. Sometimes you just get in one of those moods where you just can't focus on much and play far worse than you're capable of
Anyway, fuck the french defence.
I find the french pretty boring and miserable to play as white. My goto was the advance, where white ends up with a bit more space in the centre and potential for a kingside attack, but black will constantly be trying to undermine that centre with moves like C5. I'm sure its perfectly fine to play like that, but I just find it constantly irritating having my centre undermined by that and I struggled to really understand what I'm meant to be doing.
So anyway now I normally play the Tarrasch where instead of 3.Nc3 or e5, you play Nd2. It tends to lead to more open positions as far as I can tell, which I enjoy, and there are some fun lines where you can bully black's queen or play against their isolated d-pawn for a while
After the typical 3...c5 4.exd5 the fun line is 4...Qxd5, where black will usually end up taking white's d pawn, but white will get a lot of activity bullying the queen and be able to regain it. Instead black took with the e pawn. Typically you don't want to play exc as white, since black will recapture and develop at the same time with the bishop. Often you'll end up letting black move the bishop, then take it and make black waste a tempo.
In any case, I think black's mistake here comes from not just developing the kingside bishop and castling. All their problems end up coming from the king being stuck in the centre. Annoyingly, although i had the right idea in trying to exploit that pin, I went about in in a very roundabout way. My plan was to bring the knight to c5 via b3 and attack the pinned bishop, but I could have done the same thing a move quicker with the simple ng5, and nc5 fails simply to bxc5 anyway. Not good.
I don't think my opponent was really thinking about trying to resolve the pin though. They built up a big centre, but the Queen was misplaced over on the Queenside unable to help the bishop. Again 13.ng5 would have been winning, there's simply no way of defending the bishop after the knight takes other than the pawn, then my rook comes smashing down the centre and the black king is finished. Instead I played 13.bg5, with the intent of taking the knight and taking the d pawn with the queen, again exploiting the rook pin. They defended fine with 13...be7 though, finally doing something with their bishop. Now after I take with the bishop, they must take with the pawn, or lose the d pawn. After that black has a big centre, but a far weaker king, I think white is to be preferred, but it probably would have been better to keep the tension and play Qe2 to gang up on the e pawn. In any case they took with the bishop, allowing Qxd5. Amazingly the best move is still to castle here. Since as I correctly figured during the game, after 15...0-0 16. rxd3, the best black has ends up with a queen trade. The black queen can't be moved, since white is threating devestating discovered check, the only move is ...rd8. After this white takes the black queen, black takes the white queen that is giving the discovered check, and after the dust settles, white is up 2 pawns. The b pawn ends up being defended by the rook that took the queen, and white should go on to win.
My opponent didn't see this and decided to swap the Queen for a rook and pawn with Qxb2, resigning a few moves later.
If there's anything to take from this game, its probably to be less single minded. Once I had the advantage with the pin, I was right in trying to exploit it, but was too hasty and didn't look for a better and more obvious way to do so.
[Event "Rated Rapid game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/IBZDpvuN"]
[Date "2022.10.29"]
[White "MattingtonBear890"]
[Black "PDHORB"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.10.29"]
[UTCTime "12:21:59"]
[WhiteElo "1677"]
[BlackElo "1715"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+7"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-10"]
[Variant "Standard"]
[TimeControl "900+10"]
[ECO "C08"]
[Opening "French Defense: Tarrasch Variation, Open System"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]
1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nd2 c5 4. exd5 exd5 { C08 French Defense: Tarrasch Variation, Open System } 5. Ngf3 Nf6 6. Bb5+ Nc6?! { (0.31 → 0.94) Inaccuracy. Bd7 was best. } (6... Bd7 7. Bxd7+ Nbxd7 8. O-O Be7 9. dxc5 Nxc5 10. Nb3 Nce4 11. Be3) 7. O-O Qb6?! { (0.62 → 1.30) Inaccuracy. Be7 was best. } (7... Be7 8. dxc5 Bxc5 9. Qe2+ Qe7 10. Qxe7+ Kxe7 11. a4 Re8 12. Nb3) 8. Re1+ Be6 9. Bxc6+ bxc6 10. Nb3? { (1.51 → -0.07) Mistake. Ng5 was best. } (10. Ng5 Be7 11. Nxe6 fxe6 12. Nf3 O-O 13. Rxe6 Rfe8 14. Bg5 h6 15. Bxh6 Bf8 16. Rxe8 Rxe8) 10... cxd4?? { (-0.07 → 2.19) Blunder. c4 was best. } (10... c4) 11. Nbxd4?! { (2.19 → 1.08) Inaccuracy. Nfxd4 was best. } (11. Nfxd4 c5) 11... c5?? { (1.08 → 4.80) Blunder. Bc5 was best. } (11... Bc5 12. Be3) 12. Nxe6 fxe6 13. Bg5? { (4.43 → 2.63) Mistake. Ng5 was best. } (13. Ng5 O-O-O 14. Nf7 Bd6 15. g3 Bc7 16. Bg5 Rhf8 17. Nxd8 Bxd8 18. Bxf6 Rxf6 19. b3 Bc7) 13... Be7 14. Bxf6 Bxf6? { (2.11 → 3.87) Mistake. gxf6 was best. } (14... gxf6 15. Nh4 Kd7 16. Qh5 Rae8 17. Re2 Kc8 18. Rae1 e5 19. c4 d4 20. f4 Bd6 21. Nf3) 15. Qxd5 O-O 16. Rxe6 Qxb2?? { (3.88 → 8.46) Blunder. Rad8 was best. } (16... Rad8 17. Rd6+ Kh8 18. Rxb6 Rxd5 19. Rb5 g5 20. h3 h5 21. c3 g4 22. hxg4 hxg4 23. Nh2) 17. Rb6+ Kh8 18. Rxb2 Bxb2 19. Rb1 Rad8 20. Qxc5 Rf6 21. h3 { Black resigns. } 1-0