Battle at the Border Complete

The 4th annual tournament is now complete.  GM Pascal Charbonneau was the winner with a superb performance.  With a perfect score and full point lead going into the final round all he needed was a quick draw to secure the victory.  It was a great event and every year Jamin makes improvements.  The site was perfect and with only one game per table you didn't feel crowded during the games.  Credit should also go to Tony for running the DGT boards on boards 1-3, Jill for doing a great job as TD, and Robert for taking video and pictures.

Here is a re post of the final standings from the official website.

I've highlighted five players who I thought had great tournaments:

Brad Willis: faced tough opposition and had played well
Ali Razzaq: also a great result at 3.5/6
Jason Xiao: Highly underrated. Drew & won against 1900 opponents
Jason Danner: 2 wins and a draw against 1900 opponents
Nigel Reynoldson: Another underrated junior who played well

and five who are probaly not satisfied:

Hikaru Nakamura: Anything but 1st is disappointing for him I'm sure.
Eric Hansen: A couple of draws on day 2.
Richard Wang: This talented junior was the victim of two upsets.
Len Steele: Unfortunately had to face both of the underrated Sask juniors and could only manage draws.
Roger Blum: Last year had a great tournament so in order to balance the universe had to perform badly this year.

My final two games were a victory over Chris Achtemichuk (1730) and a loss to Alex Yam (2222).  I finished with 3/6 which is respectable.  I regret only my first and last games where didn't put up much resistance to a couple of masters. I played badly in the opening and was lost by the 12th move in both games.  I had the lead in my division until the last rounds when young Jason Xiao passed me by winning his last 3 games (perfect swiss gambit).

BATB R1 Gardner.pgn


BATB R2 McLeod.pgn


BATB R3 Willis.pgn


BATB R4 Reynoldson.pgn


BATB R5 Achtemichuk.pgn


BATB R6 Yam.pgn

Battle at the Border Underway

The first four rounds are complete.  Two more to go tomorrow.  A very exciting tournament so far.  GM's Nakamura and Charbanneau are the stars of the tournament and met in round four in a very strange game.  You can go to the great tournament website here and see the games.  Surprisingly Pascal won!

I had a loss and a win yesterday and another loss and then a win today.  Yo-yo effect in full force so far, but tomorrow my first game is against someone close to my level.  Yesterday I didn't play great but with the large rating differences it probably didn't change my results.  I overlooked a move against Rob Gardner (2309) then beat an unrated kid (Fraser McLeod). 

My game against Rob reached this position in the opening.
Here I played 9.h5?? overlooking the simple 9...Nxe4! 
I cannot retake the N on e4 due to mate after Qxa2

I'm pleased with my games today as I played a strong game in a loss against a Brad Willis (2130) and then ground out an endgame to a win against underrated junior Nigel Reynoldson (1309).

When I have more time I will post my games and some more info and pics.