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.

St Paul Winter Open 2014

The tournament had a good turnout despite the weather. I did well with 2.5 out of 4 (I withdrew before the last round, so I could drive home in the daylight through the blizzard)

There are important lessons for me in 3 of the games, including two Catalan's that I did not get enough out of the opening, one of which I held on to draw FM Wasiluk. My second round game was a bit of a blow out, as he missed a critical move. In the third round, I messed up tactics against P. Amarasinghe in a wild KID (much like our first game years ago), but was unable to swindle him this time. My last game was the second Catalan, and though he equalized, I was able to get to an endgame where only I had winning chances, and he made several errors.

Both Catalan's were not "mainline" and illustrated the problem with memorization of opening lines.

There was a wild card thrown into the tournament. After round 4, Charles Wynn, a class A player who had not played in the last two years, was the leader having beaten Wasiluk and Chakrasali, while the other masters had draws. Iwu beat him in the last round to win the tournament. He is one to watch.

TCCL 2014 round 5

I played Zach Adams, again, and lost, again. The rest of the team did well, but the match turned on my game. We need to get at least a whole point out of the next two matches to stay in the Gold.

It was not a good night for Rochester, as the other teams lost, also.

I had a good idea that did not work tactically. I missed a pin that spoiled the combination. The combination was to open up the center while his king was stuck there.

I misjudged the team situation, and I should have played more solidly.

Following Kaufman - January 2014

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

There are a total of 199 games. I annotated two Gruenfeld games that I thought were interesting. I was going to do a third, but I got sick at the end of December.

2014 Chess season preview:

The 2014 chess season is about to begin. Five upcoming tournaments in the next few months. Rochester Chess Club January, Minnesota Winter, Rochester Winter, Minnesota Open, Rochester Chess Club March. A total of 23 rated games is possible.

The scholastic season also stretches over the next three months culminating in the Minnesota Scholastic tournament in March. The high school team I coach is lacking dedicated players. Only one high school student has shown up at the club meetings. I am bringing up some middle schools students who show some promise, and starting a chess club at the middle school that feeds the high school.

I don't expect to break 2000 rating this season. I need to do a lot of work to get to expert strength, but I know how to get there.

Expert strength should come for me by working on better understanding of endings and my openings. A lot of this is the drudgery of memorization. I need to keep my other skills sharp and my interest up by doing problems and playing. I also need to do better at strategic thinking on my opponents clock (too much time spent on  speculative precise tactical calculation)

I still need one or more breakthroughs in understanding to reach master level. I did very poorly on the quiz positions in Soltis's What It Takes to Become a Chess Master, so I think I will wait on his new book. Annotating and memorizing master games is my main approach here. I have a target of annotating three master games from the Kaufman repertoire a month, that I will include in the Following Kaufman ebook periodical. I should annotate and memorize one Grandmaster game a month from the "62 Most Instructive Games". I should finish "Capablanca's Best Endgames".