Canadian Open - Day 5

It was a good day for young Canadian masters. First Fm Eric Hansen won the blitz championship beating out a couple of Grandmasters and IM's. This is not a complete surprise as I hear his online blitz rating is over 2700. I guess he is hoping for the triple play by winning the bughouse, blitz and regular tournament.

In the regular tournament two young Saskatchewan players scalped IM's today. Keith MacKinnon (2241) beat IM Mulyar (2440) and Kevin Me (2124) beat IM Piasetski (2404).


At the top boards there were more GM clashes and other exiting games.


One of the most exciting games was the 137 move marathon between FM Michael Langer and GM Xue Zhao. At one point Zhao borrowed the arbitrators jacket because she was shivering with the air conditioner on.

My game was disappointing. I was playing against Ken Frier. His rating is 1450 but it is only provisional and he did draw with a master in his second round. I played a lifeless opening and reached an equal middle game. At one point I had to choose between trading my bishop for his night into a dead drawn position or take some risks to try to create winning chances. I chose the later and he missed the proper refutation so I reached a winning position with a pawn up and a B vs. his N with pawns on both sides, but I couldn't find the winning plan. In the position below I played 51...Bg5 to protect the f pawn when I should have went after the knight with 51...Ka4. End result was a draw.