Brief MCC Winter Swiss Update
After I finished first in last month's U1300 section I was planning to "move up" merely by the fact that the low section would be changing to U1450 for January. Steve Frymer, who plays at the club (is one of the blogs out there yours, Steve? I lose track of who is who...) sent me a nice email in which he said he thought I was playing at a level well above my rating and that I should consider truly playing up. So, on his advice I dove into the U1800 section and felt pretty good about myself.
In the first round I had black against Alexander Hu, rated somewhere around 1550 (my "unofficial" rating after the last tournament is 1291, by the way). He opened with 1. b4 and I found myself immediately regretting my hubris. I lost a pawn about 3 moves in to a simple tactic, but went on to play a reasonable game before losing a bishop to a check intermezzo around move 30. b4 isn't even in my MCO and I don't expect to see it very often, so I don't think I'll worry about getting ready for it too much.
In round 2 I took a bye as my wife and I both had the Martian Death Flu that's been making the rounds in the Boston area.
Round 3 found me with white against Mr. Timothy Lung (1459). He's the first opponent I've met over the board 3 times. We were 1-1 in the prior two games, and I managed to win this one. The prior two games were published in Mig Greengard's Whitebelt newsletter, and I was hoping to get another interesting game and keep the streak up, but Tim disappointed me this time. He played exf on move 5 in the Bishop's opening (which seems not favorable for black) and then his real downfall was 14 ... Qb6+?? which just loses a piece. Lung is still the highest rated player I've ever beaten, and now that I've beaten him twice in a row I'm starting to feel like maybe I shouldn't be so afraid of 14 and 1500's. Still, if a 1450 is going to make a mistake like Qb6, how good will I have to get before I don't make errors that really bother me? Even though the game wasn't that interesting, I was pleased. This is 2 out of 3 games (the other being my round 4 game against V. Vutukuri) in which I didn't make a move which I regretted. When I play carefully and don't make foolish mistakes, I think I can be tough to beat.
Tonight, if the preliminary pairings hold (which they will unless unexpected byes are taken) I'll have white again against Michelle Chen (1633). She's lost a few games recently to people in the 1300 range, so I think if I play carefully I should have a chance.
Anyone from the MCC know what she plays against 1 e4?
Anyway, I'll annotate the first two games from this tournament at some point, but for now, if you want to take a quick look, you can find them in all their unannotated glory at http://njord.org/~steve/mychess/mcc0107.htm or http://njord.org/~steve/mychess/mcc0107.pgn.
In the first round I had black against Alexander Hu, rated somewhere around 1550 (my "unofficial" rating after the last tournament is 1291, by the way). He opened with 1. b4 and I found myself immediately regretting my hubris. I lost a pawn about 3 moves in to a simple tactic, but went on to play a reasonable game before losing a bishop to a check intermezzo around move 30. b4 isn't even in my MCO and I don't expect to see it very often, so I don't think I'll worry about getting ready for it too much.
In round 2 I took a bye as my wife and I both had the Martian Death Flu that's been making the rounds in the Boston area.
Round 3 found me with white against Mr. Timothy Lung (1459). He's the first opponent I've met over the board 3 times. We were 1-1 in the prior two games, and I managed to win this one. The prior two games were published in Mig Greengard's Whitebelt newsletter, and I was hoping to get another interesting game and keep the streak up, but Tim disappointed me this time. He played exf on move 5 in the Bishop's opening (which seems not favorable for black) and then his real downfall was 14 ... Qb6+?? which just loses a piece. Lung is still the highest rated player I've ever beaten, and now that I've beaten him twice in a row I'm starting to feel like maybe I shouldn't be so afraid of 14 and 1500's. Still, if a 1450 is going to make a mistake like Qb6, how good will I have to get before I don't make errors that really bother me? Even though the game wasn't that interesting, I was pleased. This is 2 out of 3 games (the other being my round 4 game against V. Vutukuri) in which I didn't make a move which I regretted. When I play carefully and don't make foolish mistakes, I think I can be tough to beat.
Tonight, if the preliminary pairings hold (which they will unless unexpected byes are taken) I'll have white again against Michelle Chen (1633). She's lost a few games recently to people in the 1300 range, so I think if I play carefully I should have a chance.
Anyone from the MCC know what she plays against 1 e4?
Anyway, I'll annotate the first two games from this tournament at some point, but for now, if you want to take a quick look, you can find them in all their unannotated glory at http://njord.org/~steve/mychess/mcc0107.htm or http://njord.org/~steve/mychess/mcc0107.pgn.
posted by Zweiblumen @ 10:21 AM
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