Annotated Games From My 18th Tournament (Portland Chess Club Spring Open)

Hello dear friends,

This past weekend I played in the open section of the Spring Open. It was an interesting tournament, with some disappointing losses, particularly the dragon, and also some decent wins.

My first game was a loss against a FIDE master, Nick Raptis. I played the opening well, but got careless, and with little time on my clock, willingly exchanged down into a lost pawn endgame. Not my best performance.

 A loss out of the dragon. I got crushed out of the opening, due to some poor moves, but somehow he missed simple two move combinations that would have won a piece, and let me trade down into what should have been a drawn endgame. Unfortunately I blundered in the pawn endgame. 2 very bad moves. One positional blunder in the middle game by not preserving my dsb, and one terrible blunder in the endgame which turned the drawn K+P endgame into a lost one.

For my third round I was supposed to play a game, but the person I was paired against had actually requested a bye. So I didnt play, which was a little disappointing, but still got a full point.

The fourth round was my first experience of playing against the Latvian gambit in tournament play. I saw that he played the Latvian Gambit so I did a bit of analysis, however he deviated on move 3 from my preparation. His deviation ends up being a losing blunder, but I didn't find the correct continuation. Thankfully, he blundered again losing a piece. I was able to liquidate and convert with minimal difficulties.

The last game is the one I was proudest of. I played the black side of a Colle System and I systematically outplayed him, in a pretty nice fashion. I had just gone over this opening with my teacher so I was pretty knowledgeable about it and I think I played it quite well.

All in all, interesting games, and a fun weekend. By some fluke of the imagination, I ended up sharing the best score for the U1800 prize. Almost certainly because of my 1 point bye.

I dont know when the next tournament will be but I will certainly play as soon as humanly possible. 

Good luck in your games,
Elias