A titanic back and forth struggle. Jamin surprised me with his opening and made any preparation I had done moot. I missed a bishop move in the late opening that cost me a pawn. After taking a long time I came up with a good plan to fight back. I managed to equalize and actually had an advantage for a brief time. Jamin fought back and regained the advantage. It came down to a Queens and pawns ending that I think I should of been able to draw but I made a beginner mistake when I allowed him to trade Queens.
I played 53. Qf4?? and let him trade queens into a won ending. Argh... My only explanation for this horrible move is that it had come down to 2 mins on both of our clocks and I don't seem to play very well in time pressure. I'll post more of the game later.
Game 2
A very disappointing game. The only good thing about it was that I managed to surprise Jamin by playing the Dutch. He's never seen me play this before, mainly because I never played it in anything other than a blitz game online. I quickly lost my way in the opening when Jamin didn't follow the same line he played in the Canadian Open. I was hallucinating some phantom counter tactical move and walked into dropping a piece. I didn't want to lose in less than 25 moves so I played another 10 moves before I resigned. I don't really want to post anything from this game because I don't think there much to learn from it but this was my last chance to save the piece with a6 but instead I played 13. O-O-O??
At this moment I'm still planning on playing in the Med Hat Open this weekend.
