Elite Chess Summer Open

It's no secret that I'm not the most active tournament player.  I enjoy the comradery unique to the CICL (and the USAT), so I jumped at the chance to play in the Elite Chess Summer Open!

My round 1 game was against tactician Sonny Mata.  We had played before on several occasions and I knew him to be a tactician who memorizes main lines.  To win, I'd need to take our game into uncharted waters...

My round 2 game was against King's Gambit specialist Howard Cohen.  In our previous tournament game the tactics worked in my favor.  As Black, could I make history repeat itself?

My final game was against the only 2.0/2 player, Mark Engelen!  Could I summon the strength and creativity to break his hot streak?

All in all, Jeff DiOrio ran a great event with several tournaments--including bughouse!  This tournament was an excellent warmup for the coming season, and a great time was had by all.