Oregon Open 2013 Summary
Starting now, I will write a summary of my tournaments and then a few of my best games will be shown later.
From August 31 to September 2, I went to Oregon to play the 2013 Oregon Open, which is a 3 hour drive from my house! I arrived in Oregon with my brother, SamShe, a day before the tournament starts. I was excited for this tournament, as I played 0 tournaments in August, and was hoping I could get to 2200 USCF rating before high school starts.
Round 1 started a little late, but when it got started, I saw I was paired with black against Moshe Rachmuth (1899). Rachmuth's son was playing the seperate scholastic tournament, so he was away from the board helping his son. It was quite funny because he forgot to press his clock on the very first move. That left me sitting there awkwardly for 20 minutes! He played 1. Nf3 Nf6 b4 opening, which I assumed was a bad opening as I never saw it before. I soon got a big space advantage and he was forced to give up one of his bishops for my knight. I eventually won a pawn and traded all the pieces into a winning endgame.
In round 2, I played Maxwell Sun (1977), who I found was very tricky. Maxwell played the Ruy Lopez Schliemann defence (3. f5) which I knew nothing about!! I hadn't prepared for this at all. Luckily, I survived the opening and got a small advantage. He started an attack on the kingside by letting me take a few of his queenside pawns, which I thought was creative, but not accurate. The ending position was...
The king and rook have to stay on the queenside to not let my pawns promote. All I need to do is push my kingside pawns all the way up. Black has no defence.
In round 3, I played Jason Cigan (2007). The game is shown in another one of my posts, so i will just give a short summary. I played the Bogo-Indian defence against d4, which I think it equalizes with black. I got a strong knight of e4, supported by f5. White was supposed to block out my bishop on b7 and attack on the queenside, while I attack on the kingside, but I don't think he had the wrong plan, and my kingside attack was much faster. In the end, he missed the strong move Nh3+ which pretty much wins for black.
In round 4, I played Aaron Grabinsky (2087), as I expected before the round. I was aware that he gained 600+ points in the last year, so I was guessing he is a strong player. From his quick rating gain, I expected him to be a tactical player, so I closed the position as much as possible, stopping all of his play. I slowly started an attack on the kingside. From his endless sighs, I knew that he hated his position. As his opponent, that made me happy. I set many tricky traps, and I was surprised he didn't fall in any of them until the very end. I won a few pawns, traded all the pieces, and won the game.
As my school starts on Tuesday, and I was really tired already, I decided to take a zero point bye in round 5, and my half point bye in round 6. Coincidentally, my rating went above 2200! I was really surprised!! ;).
Overall, the tournament was won by Aaron Grabinsky, Richard Gutman, and Alexandra Botez.
Great job to players who gained a lot of rating points! This includes Richard Gutman, Kyler Haining, Sarah May, Derek Zhang, Clemen Deng, and Micah Smith!
