Big Fun In The Big City

Yup, that's me standing between the legendary chess.com IM contingent at the Chicago Open. Danny and David were kind enough to invite me along to celebrate David Petty's (aka PinkHamster) fantastic victory. We chatted about chess, the world championship, kids, Danny's growth late growth spurt, cultural trivia, and how fantastic the Spurs are compared to the Suns.

All in all it was a good but not great tournament for me. I finished with a respectable but hardly outstanding 4.5 out of 7 in the under-1500 section. Frankly, I was simply two tired Saturday (after driving 7 hours on Friday and playing in the first round and having a post-round beer with Danny) to concenrate and I managed to turn two winning positions into losses to find myself sitting at 1 point after 3 rounds - effectively out of the money.

True to form, once the pressure was off, and I was more rested, I bounced bank and won both games on Sunday, started Monday off with a draw, and finished with a crushing victory that ended so early I was able to go down the street, take in MIB3 at the IMAX and get back in time to watch Danny's game finish up!

My performance rating for the whole event was EXACTLY THE SAME as my rating.  Which is very dissappointing, as I had hoped to break the 1500 barrier for the first time in my life. However, after I was rested and took the pressure off myself, I put together a 1720 performance for Sunday and Monday. I just need to figure out how to play that way for the whole game.

Here's what I think was my best game of the tournament: