The Chicago Open U1700 Part 1

Hello!  In my first post marking my road to becoming an expert player (hopefully by sometime in my 4th year in college), I would like to share my games from the recently concluded 2012 Chicago Open.  I played in the U1700 section.  This is the second largest tournament I've been a part of ( I played in the High School Nationals open section in 2011 with good results for my rating).

I arrived at the luxurious Westin with two other members from the UChicago chess team on Friday, May 25th, 2012, excited for a weekend of chess. I anticipated seeing the chess.com team in action in the open section and also looked forward to rooting for them.  Because I was on the three day track, my rounds didn't start until 11 am the next morning so I had an evening to relax and run over my opening preparation again (I'm a caro player against e4 and a benoni/nimzo player against d4 so there is a fair amount of theory to keep track of).

The morning of round 1 I failed to find any substantial food, but was too pumped up over chess to care.  I got my pairings and arrived to my board a few minutes early to await my opponent.  I should mention that in the last several tournaments I played before the Chi Open I feel as if I was substantially underrated  (i.e. -100 pts at least).  I was paired in round 1 against a 1597 and I felt confident and ready to test my repertoire as black against whatever this guy would throw at me.  Unfortunately I was in for a dull surprise...

Here is my game from round 1: