Minnesota Open 2014

Bartholomew won the 2014 Minnesota Open with a perfect score, with Nagle, Tang, and Amarashinge in a 3 way tie for second.

Amarashinge re-entered after losing his first round game to our local protege Leker-Locker. His re-entry gave me my first loss. I was white in a line of the KID that I have not looked at much. I deviated from my preparation on move 8. I had a good idea on move 13, but did not follow up precisely.

Saturday was a miserable day for me with two more losses after the first. In the latter games, I had an advantage and messed up both times. Good learning experiences, I hope. I did not have a good night's sleep Friday and did not eat much on Saturday. I think both were contributors to the latter two losses.

I easily won both games Sunday, after a good nights sleep, breakfast, and lunch.

I need to spend some attention to playing "easier" (Soltis "What It Takes To Be A Chess Master"), so long days do not wear me out so much.

Following Kaufman - February 2014

The February 2014 issue of Following Kaufman is available for purchase on Smashwords for 99 cents.

Included are 78 relevant games. I have annotated three Ruy Lopez games this month.

Rochester Chess Club tournament January 2014

The club this year is running a grand prix style for determination who will play in the club championship next fall. The first of these tournaments finished this last Tuesday, and I managed to squeak out a win against another class A player. The time control was G/60+30 increment. This was a little fast for me, and I had trouble in all 4 games, but managed to win many in the endgame to get 3.5 points out of 4.