Cappelle begins

Again, not much free time. Today is the one day that we have to play two games. When it's one game, I say "get to," when it's two, I say 'have to," because the level of exhaustion is so severe, that it becomes much less enjoyable. So, forced to make a choice, I've decided to show some of my chess from the last two days, rather than sharing my feelings.

I had a really fascinating game in the first round. For many moves, it was quite tense, as I was not sure if I would end up worse or better or equal, both players disposing of very poor light-squared bishops, which were on the verge of being removed from the game they were so bad. Partly in order to trap his bishop on b1, I advanced my queenside pawns, which made them dangerous-- for my opponent since they threatened to make a passed pawn, and for me, since they threatened to become over-extended and weak. Unfortunately I was quite tired during this game, and when I got into time trouble, I blundered a piece. Otherwise, there might have been quite an interesting endgame as well.

Yesterday, I had a very tough game as well. My opponent played well, and we were equal for most of the game, until yet another time scramble. This time it was my opponent who made a mistake in time trouble. However, I was really excited to find, calculate, and play the following move with less than a minute on my clock! My GM colleagues will probably not be very impressed, but I'm still pumped up

In other news, Jesse won yesterday, so he has 1.5. Vinay played a fascinating attack, but didn't have enough energy to carry it through, and lost (so he has 1). Josh was extremely fortunate to save a losing rook endgame, which I'd show you if I had more time (so he also has 1). Jesse is playing GM Burmakin this morning up on the stage.

Alright, we're off to play now! Hopefully, I'll have some more games like these two.