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.

Kitchener-Waterloo Spring Active

I did not announce that I was going to Kitchener on Saturday April 24 because it was kind of an impromptu thing. The day started unexpectedly as the address of the City Hall that I got was wrong, forcing me to run a kilometer to arrive at the venue on time. There were not as many players there as I had expected there to be and as a result the tournament was condensed to just an Open Section. Of the 18 players there I was the youngest (quite a surprise after attending other events) but I was not intimidated by the crowd. I had no active rating heading into the event but I was assigned a 1750 rating by the organizer before even playing a game.

I finished the event on minus 1 but I won both games that I was expected to. My three losses were all very exciting and I could have extracted some points out of them. This was by far the best chess I have ever played; highlighted by my third round loss against FM Michael Dougherty in which I held the advantage right up until the end.

I believe the tournament was won by FM Hans Jung, but I did not stay to see the conclusion of his last round game. I will annotate at least two games from this event as I am very proud of my play. I will not be posting here in quite a long time after I finish my annotations here though because I cannot play in any events for quite a long time due to personal scheduling conflicts.

Hamilton Winter Open Results

Sorry these are way late; I basically did absolutely nothing on the March Break except for the Tournament. In Hamilton I managed a 3.0/5.0 score, but I only had a rating performance of 1733 (if I remember). Fortunately, my rating only declined 8 points to 1856, and my rating is now established. I lost to an unrated player named Stephan Tonakian on the twelfth move by hanging a bishop (it was horrifying) and I butchered a Slav Exchange on the black side against Yuanchen Zhang (1648) and lost quickly. Overall, my play lacked direction and it was not precise, and I do not wan t to annotate any games. However I did promise to annotate one, so soon (Friday at the latest) you will see my third victory against Doug Gillis. Not surprisingly, it was another Caro-Kann and a repeat of our last opening line in the Panov. I came out with a slight edge which I almost expertly converted only to allow the draw as I was on the cusp of victory. Fortunately, he missed the correct continuation and a few moves later I hauled in the point.

Adam Cormier demolished the field letting up only in the last round drawing with Yuanchen Zhang. I do not remember the rest of the results, but that is because I am not among the top three which I desired to be. I am still a bit dejected from the event, but this only motivates me to play my best chess in the future. Hamilton was a good tournament for me because I realized that even though your opponents may be rated lower than you, they can still be dangerous.

Hamilton Winter Open

Sorry that I have not updated this blog in a while. I just registered for the Hamilton Winter Open for next weekend, and I expect to play well in it. I will annotate a game from it after it concludes and as I said before, maybe more than one if I am happy with my play. That's all I have to talk about chess right now, but I will be back soon with news of the tournament.

Guelh Results

In the Open Section Nikolay Noritsyn and Artiom Samsonkin shared first on 4.5/5.0 points, and in my section, Israel Crooks, Yelizaveta Orlova, and Ian Finlay finished in a three way tie for first on 4.0/5.0. I am not sure how the tiebreaks work, so I do not know the outright winners. I think I finished with a performance rating of 1833 (the chess.ca site is slow at the moment so I am just trying to recall what I read about three hours ago) but my rating did climb five points (what a jump!) to 1864. I am pleased with this because I worried that my rating would go down. I would like to give special mention to Israel Crooks, whose rating is not provisional, but who climbed an amazing 100 points to now sit at 1872. I hope that I will play against him again with the black pieces to show him my full defensive ability.

Concerning the future, I am looking at the Hamilton tournament on the March 14th weekend. I really want to win that one!

Thoughts On Guelph

The Guelph Winter Pro-Am Chess Tournament was well-organized and interesting. Since there were a few 1900-2000 rated players playing in the open section, I was slightly closer to the top of the U2000 section than I expected to be. All of my games were interesting, which is not always a good thing for a defensive minded player such as myself. I finished on 3.0/5.0, but considering my opposition and the positions I had I could have extracted more. I have to wait two days to see my new rating, but I will not be surprised if I drop to somewhere around 1840.

I have to use the word "disjointed" when describing my play, as there were numerous incidents where I had a solid plan but failed to execute it because I was caught up in the excitement of the game. With a breif check of Rybka, it appears that I gave too much credit to my opponent's threats when I should have been completing my development and finding the best squares for my pieces. However, the experience I gained here will serve me well, and I will surely find in the future that there are less wrinkles in my game.

I finished the tournament with two wins, two draws, and one loss. I believe that my most instructive game was the loss though, even though it was not the most fun for me. Credit goes to my opponent Israel Crooks for putting his faith in the concept of initiative and being the first person in my chess career to really break my Caro-Kann (Jessse Wang ended up worse out of the opening; I just blundered in time pressure). I will annotate the game shortly, however I am not at home at the moment so I do not have the game score or the diagram software. Mention must be made of my "thrilling" draw against Terry Song (I say "thrilling" because it was certainly uncomfortable for me- at one point I was dead lost but he missed the win. The game ended when he gave perpetual check in the face of mate in two) and I also must express my surprise to encounter the French Defence all three times I had the white pieces! Fortunately (luckily) I had spent a long time on French Defence preparation before the tournament because I felt it was a weakness of mine. Interestingly, it was the only opening I had perpared before the event.

Overall, it was a good tournament (even though I did not play well) and I feel confident about my ability to climb the ratings ladder. To my knowledge I finished somewhere in the 5-7 range of about 18 people. I will need to confirm this on Wednesday though. I also believe that Artiom Samsonkin won the Open section with 4.5/5.0. My annotated game should be up shortly.

Blog Overhaul

I got bored with the previous scheme, so I decided to create a different layout and different colours. That's all I have to say this time/

A Break Ahead

Well it looks like there will not be any chess tournaments for me to enter in the next few months. I may not be posting frequently here in the next while because of that but if I feel the desire to share my thoughts on an opening or look at one of my games I suppose I will. The Corus chess tournament is coming up, and I expect it to be a thriller. I do not remember there being so many players in Group A under 2700 though, and I am curious to know why Levon Aronian is not going to be attending. I expect Magnus Carlsen to win this tournament, but Anand and Kramnik cannot be counted out. Well, only time will tell, and I will be following the tournament closely.

Hart House Winners

Congratulations to IM Nikolay Noritsyn, IM Leonid Gerzhoy, and Andrei Moffat for finishing 1st and 2-3 respectively in the open section. A surprise came when Arthur Calugar defeated Bator Sambuev in the thrid round. Congratulations to Arthur as well!

In my section the results were: 1. Geordie Derraugh, 2-3. Leon Perelman, 2-3. Yelizaveta Orlova

In U1800: 1. Jim Zhao, 2-3. Richard Yam, 2-3. Mike Ivanov

In U1500: 1. Adrian Botescu, 2. Qiang Li, 3. James Denis Dylan Martin

Congratulations to all of the prize winners!

I intended to mention in my last post that I don't think a single opponent of mine on the weekend was over 20 years old. This is a good sign, as it is important to see youth in Canada playing chess. I hope to be competing against these people for years to come.

Hart House Standings

The standings of the tournament are finally up. Sorry I did not post my results earlier but I wanted to wait for the standings and my new rating. Before I get into that though I would like to say that it was a good tournament, with a lot of chess and a lot of chess players (117!). I figure I got about 16 hours of chess on the weekend, some of which very poor, but after all was said and done I finished with 3.0 out of 5 which put me in places 6-8 out of 26. Now that seems like a fair showing, however I assure you the world has not yet seen my best chess. My results were as follows: Draw with black against Dalia Kagramanov (1983), Loss with white against Leon Perelman (1954), Draw with black against Michael Song (1809), win with white against Micheal Zaghi (1726), and a win with white against Dennis Khaiter (1686). I finished with a performance rating of 1916 and my new rating is now 1859.

I think I will annotate a game tomorrow (it will be difficult because none of my games were any good). Looking towards the future, I believe that I should achieve a 1900 rating without much trouble, and I will move along from there.

New Chess Book

A teacher at my school just gave me a chess book called "The Best Move" written by GM Vlastimil Hort and GM Vlastimil Jansa. It is like a multiple choice tactics book, but deviously difficult. It looks like it was written in the 1980s, and in fact, upon inspection, I just learned it was copyrighted in 1980! Anyways, It is a good book, and it has good annotaions, so if you ever come across it, be sure to pick it up.

Another Tournament

I am looking at entering the Hart House winter tournament next weekend in Toronto. I had planned to enter the U1800 section and really push for the top spot, but due to my large rating jump I will end up in the U2100 section. No worries though, as I was well on my way to victory with black against a 2075 before I blundered in time pressure. I think if I can come off with two wins my rating will yet again improve.

Tournament Thoughts

Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while, I have been busy with schoolwork. The Saturday tournament went fairly well for me; I scored 3 points out of 5, with wins over two kids rated approximately 1400 and a win against Richard Douglas (1885). If you're wondering why there were 1400 rated kids there, it is because three master players didn't play, so they combined the top two sections into one. My two losses came against IM Nikolay Noritsyn (2542) and Jesse B Wang (2075). I lost quickly to Noritsyn, blundering right in the opening, and I was comfortably one pawn up and winning against Wang when I made a horrible blunder in slight time pressure. I plan to annotate my games against Richard Douglas and Jesse B Wang in the near future.

There was a tie for first place between IM Noritsyn and Arthur Calugar (2329) at 4 points out of 5. Bill Peng (2142) finished third.

Tournament Today

Well, today is the day of the tournament that I'm going to. It seems that Aman Hambleton has been taken of the list of players (perhaps he didn't pay) so we are down to nine. That's too bad because now byes will take effect. I don't want to sit out a round but chances are good that I will. Anyways, I am prepared to lay good, solid chess, and I will annotate some of my games here.

More Talent!

Looks like the Saturday tournament just got tougher. FM Aman Hambleton (2308) is registered, so there are now an even ten players. This is looking like it will be a very instructive weekend for me, I just hope my rating doesn't get killed!

Saturday Tournament

I am attending a tournament in Toronto on Saturday December 5th. It is a small but very strong field that I will be up against. I do not expect to win more than at most 1 game, and I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't win any. The field so far looks like this:
1. IM Noritsyn, Nikolay 2542
2. NM Martchenko, Alexander 2340
3. NM Calugar, Arthur 2329
4. WIM Yuan, Yuanling 2304
5. Peng, Bill 2142
6. Wang, Jesse 2075
7. Wu,Kevin 1930
8. Douglas,Richard 1885
9. O'Sullivan, Patrick 1678

Clearly, I will be over matched, but I do expect to gain a lot of experience here an I may take a game or two If I can play solid positions against aggressive opponents. The only deciding factor involved in the success of this tournament for me is whether or not I have fun. And those strong players should be on their toes, because I am working hard to prepare for tough fights.