2012 Oregon Open Part 2

Part 2: Detailing Rounds 4-5-6. 

Sunday afternoon I was paired with Dillon Murray. A strong junior player who I think ended up tying for first or second in the Reserve. I played the Caro-Kann and wanted to see what he had in store. He told me afterward that he played the CK as black, so presumably he was reasonably comfortable the entire game.

Now that I had blundered away 2 games from essentially equal positions, I was a. rather frustrated with myself b. out of the prize money so I got to focus on just playing good fun entertaining chess. I slept pretty good Sunday night, and Monday felt nice and refreshed for the game that started at 9 am.

I was paired against Rusty Miller who I played in the Newport Summer Open just in July. My last tournament, so he was rather fresh on my mind ( http://blog.chess.com/mueller/2012-newport-summer-open-round-3 ). I knew I had won our first game, but I didn't remember openings or color or anything about it. 

So now I was 3/5. I had won my 3 games as white and lost my 2 games as black. I felt like besides 2 game ending blunders, I had played fine. I wasn't in outright trouble in any of the openings as often happens, so I was eager to play round 6.

My opponent for the 6th round was Arliss Dietz. I thought I had played him previously but wasn't sure. My records show it has been a couple years ( http://blog.chess.com/mueller/portland-spring-open-pt-5 ).

I was really any better but my opponent played a sort of reckless transition from midgame to endgame and my queen snuck in and very quickly the tables turned.I could just tell getting his king to f4 was bad for him even if I couldn't find every concrete win.

So I finished the tournament +4 -2. My rating dropped from 1737 to 1723. Nothing major. I felt I played pretty well. And I was glad to go up. And now I get to look forward to the next time I head to Portland. Maybe for the Fall Open?

Hope to see you there. And hope I can answer any questions of yours about my games, or about the tournament in general.