White, Unrated vs. Brendan Cooper, Unrated

In round four (round three was a bye) I faced off against a fellow unrated player, though he is slated to have a provisional rating of 1035 (based on four games) take effect in October. This was easily the most exciting of the games I played in this tournament. After move 44, we each had only two or three minutes left and had to stop taking notation; we then blitzed out the rest of the game (ten-ish moves) and did our best to reconstruct what happened later (the final position is correct; we took a photo). There were a handful of questionable rook moves where one of us grabbed a piece, realized the move we intended to make was illegal, and had to place it somewhere else.

My opponent told me afterwards that he used a trap-ish opening on me, but I unknowingly sidestepped it by playing 3. ♘c3 instead of taking the proffered pawn on f5 (which Lichess recommends! I am unsure whether the variation Lichess highlighted was what he had in mind).

Perhaps my biggest mistake this game was 15. ♕e3??. I had seen that if my Black took my g2 pawn with his bishop or vice versa, he would have ♞f3, forking my king and queen, and I was trying to avoid that. Immediately after moving I realized 15. ♕c3 would have accomplished this goal without falling into 15...♞xg2+, forking my king and queen anyways and costing me a rook. Per Lichess, my best move would have been simply to castle queenside, which I had been planning regardless and which I played immediately following the exchange.