Life is busy right now, and it's impinging on important things like chess :^)
Our opponents in the upcoming last round are bringing in a ringer. The expert that had beaten me once before was not good enough, so they pulled a master out of retirement. Well, he was getting back into chess anyway, but that's my line and I'm sticking to it.
The master, Matt Jensen, is a Rochester native and former MN high school champion. I have played him once before, and he beat me with a solid but maybe drawish line in the King's Indian Defense (it tends to opposite colored bishops). OTOH, I have had difficulty with it, losing both times I have faced it. Gallagher's book is not helping me in this variation, and the games in the databases are not speaking to me. Perhaps, inspiration will strike over the board :(
Or maybe he will book up in another line and I will be more comfortable ;)
Quote of the day from a Jeremy Silman column on Chess.com:
"That’s what active piece are – movable bundles of quivering fun"-Jeremy Silman
Jensen plays solid but drawish openings, which reflects his general style -- cautious and conservative. Young men have no right to play like old men. No-one can ever accuse him of being a Tal or Shirov. To beat him, you either need very good technique to out-do him in his style of play. Or (probably better) take the game into uncharted waters and make it chaotic, where the premium is on calculation and the positional markers aren't there.
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