Round 3 of the October Knights at the St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center

So, October brings another Wednesday night tourny at the the St. Louis Chess Club and Scholastic Center.

I played a very good game last week against a superior opponent and I wasn't exactly looking forward to playing last night. I haven't won a tourny game in over a month now but I don't stop trying and I keep learning and having a good time. I'm typically much more comfortable and excited when I'm playing against guys over 1200 because I get to learn and experiment.

Well last night I drew Ken West, I got the white team and Ken obviously would be black. This was probably our 4th or 5th pairing in the last two months since I started playing in tournaments at the club. In a way I feel a little bit for Ken as he enjoys playing against the stronger players too. But we've had some great games thus far, our last meeting was the 2 day swiss a couple weeks ago and he crushed my French Defense with a wicked queen attack.

I would like to say Ken West is a great guy, a gentlemen and a scholar and he's been really generous with his insight and very encouraging for a new player like myself. So ultimately I knew we were in for a really exciting game of chess and if there's anyone I don't mind getting beat by it's Ken. Enough of the man love! On with the chess :)

I felt compelled to post this game because I took some pretty serious risks initially, using a rook as bait for one and there was some serious opportunites for play on my side of the board that I failed to take advantage of.

The English! I'm kind of intriqued by it and I've been testing it out for play in tournaments right here on chess.com.

A22: English Opening: King's English Variation, Two Knights' Variation

That's us and then we're out of the book by the next move. I knew about the fianchetto variation but wasn't in the mood for that. So anticipating his bishop coming I pushed on with my plan as reckless as it may have been.

Here's the game.

I hope you enjoyed the match, I'm sorry if the board I posted sucks, I'm just getting into the habbit of pgn's and the notation. If you click on the move list you can navigate through the move list and get off of my fantasy position. Anyhoo.