Monday, February 6, 2012

Rochester Winter Open

I did ok at this tournament, +2-2=1. I beat who I was supposed to beat and lost to when I was supposed to lose.

There was a good turnout, but with the nice weather I was expecting more high rated players to come down from the cities.

I should learn a great deal from all my games. Even my wins pointed out weaknesses in my understanding. I played my first Maroczy bind (by transposition from a symmetrical English) and was luck to escape with a draw. I managed to play the main line by reasoning over the board (up to a point). There is a lot of new material, that I am trying to absorb in one gulp. I have not really worked out lines for this transposition, yet, but it is exciting to play new stuff. Wojo played a very interesting move 10, which I will look at carefully when I analyze this game.

My loss as black against Master Matt Jensen was similar to an earlier loss. I guess I did not learn enough from that previous game. I should have tried to lose in a different way.

Last round was a nail biter. I was tied up in a Pirc, but sacked a pawn to free my pieces and developed a strong counter attack. I missed the winning move when I was under 20 secs to go on my clock. With both of us playing on the 5s delay, I started blundering away pieces, and resigned.

Next Friday is round 6 of the TCCL, and the weekend after that is the Minnesota Open.

Hectic but fun, is the chess tournament season in Minnesota.

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