This lone rusty warrior is a good metaphor for my chess efforts

Rejkjavik Open, Rounds 4-6: I'm playing better!

Mar 13, 2018, 6:05 AM |

I'm finally playing better chess! The results have also improved:

Round 4: (B) against Stefan Bergsson (2201) - draw

Round 5: (B) against Jonathan Pein (2184) - draw

Round 6: (W) against WGM Evgeniya Doluhanova (2275) - loss

Game 4 was a real highlight, a wild King's Indian defense. What I liked most about the game is that I played well after I was out of book early and in a tough position. I simply tried to create as much counterplay as I could, and it worked! Plenty of mistakes on both sides, but that's to be expected in such a game. Also, the game took 91 moves, so we were both exhausted at the end.

Game 5 was reasonably well-played by me. In a closed Sicilian sideline, my opponent went for an expansion on the queenside that seems dubious to me, I came up with a good pawn sacrifice and simply had huge play against his weak pawns. I haven't checked the game with a computer yet, but I feel like I missed my chances to push for a win. Instead, I ended up simplifying into a dead-drawn endgame. Apologies for the minimal comments, I simply haven't had time to go through in more detail.

In game 6, I eventually was simply outplayed, my opponent just knew the pawn structures much better. Even though she played better than me, I did miss two chances to roughly equalize the game (at least to the computer), maybe that's just the power of having the white pieces.

At the time of writing, I did conclude Round 7, but I'll report on this and the two final rounds in my next update.

Rejkjavik Open, Rounds 4-6: I'm playing better!

Chris Goldammer's chess blog