My first impressions of the weekend. I will add more later including my games and some pictures I took.
The third annual Battle at the Border Tournament was held over this weekend. As usual I waited until the last minute before preparing, but when I tried to look at some of my previous games on Thursday, I discovered that my database had been corrupted and I lost all the games I played in the last 18 months. So my new plan was to try out in long games a couple of gambit lines I been playing online in speed games.
Round 1. My first game was against a very young and precocious kid from Saskatoon, Jason Xiou (1147). He played very well and I think I underestimated him a little. I played too aggressively at one point and was certainly worse until he made a blunder. He then blundered several more times and I won soon after.
Round 2. I took a bye so that I could host a birthday party for my wife. We had a great time. I boiled some lobster, my father-in-law made some traditional Philippino food and we drank and played majong til midnight.
Round 3. I was paired with another underrated junior again (Josh Timm) but when I got to the site in the morning I noticed there was an error in the pairings. When it was corrected my pairing was changed to R Shanker (1804) He passed on my gambit line and I reached a nice position and a pawn ahead but then I made some errors and ended up with tripled isolated pawns. I choose to play for activity in a double rook ending and managed to draw.
Round 4. Art Milne (1873). We reached a position that I think was favourable to me but very closed. I was looking to sacrifice to open up his king but never found the right time. We traded off several pieces and then he offered a draw. I was way behind on time so I accepted but I believe it was a draw anyway.
Andrew Boik won with a perfect 4/4. Roger Blum had a great tournament and came second with 3 points.
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