Grappling With The Octopus

Yesterday I played a fun Game/60 against none other than Greg "the Octopus" Nowak, Montana's only chess master, and I pulled off a nice upset. This was rather uncanny because it was exactly ten years ago when, as a new arrival in Missoula, I entered and won Greg's July 2010 tournament in the exact same building (a café called Zootown Brew that is now Liquid Planet). In that tournament Greg was held to a draw by a street genius and finished with only 3.5 points, whereas I avoided him and cruised to a clean sweep with 4 wins and 0 losses. After that, Greg never again let me slip past him in one of his tournaments.

I have a pretty good record against Greg in speed chess, since his style is not overly aggressive and gives me time and space to maneuver, but I've been far less successful in the slow games, where he methodically squeezes the life out of me. That's how I was starting to feel in this game because he had strong initiative as white, but I held on and fought back with my knights (my favorite piece). Greg resigned and congratulated me, remarking that he never had lost with the variation he was using. If I played like this consistently I would have made expert long ago, but I suppose the struggle will continue.