Hart House Summer Open Results

Just before I begin, I would like to say that I am going to continue with the Bg5 after ...Bd6 article soon, but I felt I should talk about the Hart House Summer Open.  It was a fun tournament and a good environment, and the only real drawback was the fact that the chairs provided in the playing hall were creaky and uncomfortable.  This gave me slight back discomfort, but I kept it under control with some Tylenol.

In terms of results, the tournament was my first real setback, as I finished a very scary -3, with 2 draws and 3 losses.  I should say that I was facing some difficult competition though, as all but one of my opponents were rated higher than me, and the lower rated opponent, Ferdinand Cale, was rated at 1829, and from looking at his rating history, he seems to be consistently on the rise.  However, I had a very legitimate chance to win each of the games that I lost and even one that I drew.  I know that is a foolish thing to say at my level because the evaluation often swings between white's favour and black's, but aside from a few foolish mistakes, I could have held a comfortable advantage in each of the games but the first.  Interestingly, the first game proved to be my only promising result as I drew the #2 seed Yelizaveta Orlova (2040) with the white pieces in a tricky Sicilian that I did my best to shift from a tactical affair into a positional one.  I like this approach in Sicilian games because my opponents are often looking for quick knockouts, and I can really frustrate them with some slow stuff.  I don't have time to show the game right now, but I will surely get it posted soon.

I expect that the experience that I received from being beaten up in this tournament will encourage me to keep my head on straight all the way to the end of the games and to take a more aggressive approach when choosing moves.  I am writing this before the results of the tournament are being published, so when I post my game against Yelizaveta Orlova I will also announce the results.