2015 Monroeville June Zephyr

Today was a really strange day for me. To be honest I'm not really amused at the results, but maybe someone reading this will disagree.

As far as I know this is the only Monroeville tournament of the year with monetary prizes, which may have aided in bringing out some rather strong players. I started off with a victory against one of the Monroeville kids, whose game collapsed after he weakened his kingside, and blundered a pawn plus the exchange (these games are all G/45 with delay).

I followed this up with a surprising victory, notably my first against anyone rated 2100+, courtesy of an unfortunate time trouble blunder by my opponent that cost him a knight. Because of this, I felt the win was kind of undeserved, but I was proud of the way I had converted under time pressure (if you read my other posts, you'll see I have had too many problems with finishing under pressure). Here's the game with my initial thoughts:

However, I also had to play black in the next round against an Eastern PA expert. I lost an early pawn, but managed to fight back to an opposite-coloured bishops ending my opponent and I agreed looked very drawish. Unfortunately, I managed to blunder some pawns and eventually my bishop whilst moving too fast.

I completely blew the last game against young Timothy Cao, who I beat last weekend. I'm not sure what he was doing in his opening, but after I unleashed a standard Greco sac, he was completely lost. An oversight caused me to miss a forced mate and a few blunders later, I faced either perpetual or an unpleasant trade of queens. Fortunately, we went into an ending where I had the two bishops and an extra pawn, but I am not good at endgames and the time sink from escaping perpetual was kicking in...