Just finished the tournament this afternoon. (I tried to post this yesterday but the hotels internet conection wasn’t working) Here are my results:
Round 1 - Black vs. Kim Nguyen (2082).
I played the Scandinavian w/ 2...Nf6. I think I could have equalized early with c5 but I made my Nc6 move immediately and then saw that c5 was probably best. I played the opening badly and then followed up by playing the rest of the game poorly. Kim was playing well throughout the weekend and ended up winning the tournament by beating Dale Haessel in the last round.
Round 2 - White vs. Mike Scholz (1431)
I was looking for blood and played the King's gambit and tried to make the game as complicated as possible. He offered me a draw several times and when I made it clear I wasn't going to take a draw, he resigned. Apparently he had somewhere else he had to go, but we hadn't even played 20 moves yet. I think when he resigned he might have been better, since I hadn't been able to create an effective attack for my pawn yet, but I was still looking for something to sac.
Round 3 - Black vs. Aaron Sequillion (1994)
I played the Scandinavian with Qd6. I chose this variation after talking over some openings with Roy Yearwood in-between rounds. I decided to castle long and try to storm his king. Once again I didn't play the opening very well and eventually lost a pawn and was most likely lost, but Aaron let me create some counterplay against his King but he managed to escape and wrap up the win. Aaron is much stronger now than when I played him last time two years ago (even if he has lost 100 points after gaining 300)
After the first day I was not very happy with my play. My opening play was bad and I just didn't feel sharp at all. I wasn't calculating very well and seemed to miss many of my opponents moves. I was choosing openings that I wanted to try out, but I didn't know them well enough to play them effectively or well enough to follow through with a middle game plan. I decided that on the final day I would scrap my plan to try out more new openings (like the 2.c3 Sicilian that Roy also suggested) and stick with the openings I played years ago and so that even if I didn't remember the moves I would at least have familiarity with the positions and be able to come up with a plan.
Hemant is actually a fairly strong player who seems to me to have some bad habits that cause him to be underrated. He plays very fast and lets himself be distracted throughout the game. In this tournament I believe he was winning in 4 of his games but let 3 of them slip away. I played a closed Sicilian and once again I chose to castle long and storm the kingside in an all out win or lose attack. He managed to breakthrough first. I miscalculated my defence and then had to give up the exchange and trade my remaining major pieces and although I tried to create counterplay, I didn't have enough material left to be successful. Hemant also has another habit that was quite annoying during the game. He was constantly adjusting the pieces and half the time he did it, it was my turn. A couple of times I was deep in thought and he would come back from walking around and sit down and say "adjust" while wiggling three or four pieces. I was going to say something to him in the middle of the game, but I decided it wasn't intentional and instead started counting them. I estimated that he did it 20 times! I meant to bring it up after the game but I had to run out between rounds to eat and then forgot about it until now. If your reading this Hament you need to stop this habit.
Round 5 - White vs. Chris White (1768)
He played the French Defence and exchanged on e4. I sacked my Knight on f7 for two pawns and then I traded my Rook and Bishop for his Queen. This lead to his King being in the center and I was able to use my remaining Bishop, Rook, and Queen effectively to wrap up the win. This was my most enjoyable game, mainly because I was chasing his King around.
2009-11-r5.pgn
Overall not the result I wanted, but probably what I deserved considering I did no preparation. It's curious that three of my opponents brought up the fact that I play very aggressively. They say your style of chess should match your personality, but mine seems to be the opposite, since I am generally pragmatically cautious. Maybe I need to look at adjusting my perspective during tournament games or maybe I just wasn't taking this tournament very seriously.
Update. I've posted my games now. The last game was fun and so I ended on a good note. I went back to the Calgary chess club again on Tuesday night and participated in their speed chess tounament. Even though I'm not a great speed chess player, I managed to share the under 1700 prize with 2 others (Tony and ??). I was shut out by Martin Robichaud and an unknown Graham ??, who showed up late and then won 7/8.
