I lost both of my round 3 games against another top player. In the first game, as White, I made the mistake of going after a pawn while leaving myself open for an invasion by Black’s queen. In the first diagrammed position I have the e4 pawn attacked twice while it’s defended once, but making the capture leaves my king exposed for an attack. I should have made a developing move instead, such as getting my bishop out to allow castling. (”First to castle, never hassled” was what the great Polinski used to chant.)
The second position shows the quick penalty for my mistake. Not only is he going to get the pawn back, but I will lose more material, too. Luckily, Black didn’t find the very best moves, and I was able to parry the attack being down only a knight for a pawn. But further mistakes by me allowed him to quickly convert the advantage into a win.
I played Black in the second game, and my position looked pretty crummy coming out of the opening with two sets of doubled pawns, but I did have some hope for improvement. The extra f pawn could be used for attacking, I might coerce an exchange at c6 to undouble that pawn, and the rook might be able to attack on the half-open h file. The first two of those ideas came to pass, and I ended up with a favorable position after a few exchanges, as seen in the second diagram of this game, plus I had the “advantage” of two bishops vs. two knights.
Unfortunately, this is where I blundered, not noticing that the e7 pawn was attacked twice. Once he broke up the pawn chain, I couldn’t keep the remaining pawns all defended and soon lost.