2009 World Open, Onwards to San Sebastian!

July 05, 2009 • General

Greetings to everyone out there. This will have to be a rather short blog as I am running quite behind schedule on getting ready for San Sebastian due to the epic 5 set match in Wimbledon which occupied my whole morning. Overall, it is safe to say that I made the right decision playing in the World Open as I chose to play the 3-day and had only one difficult game against GM Yudasin which eventually led to a draw. In the 2 slow games which I played, I had a routinely quick draw with Black against GM Smirin in 14 moves. My goal was to score 1.5/2 in the slow games, and I figured draw with Black, take chances with White. However, in the 7th round I got a rude awakening when instead of getting White, I got Black against GM Najer from Russia. The game was extremely complicated and although I felt that I must have been close to losing at a certain point, I was able to outmanouver him with my two knights against his rooks and bishop. Although the game was not clean at all, (I haven’t had a chance to analyze it in depth yet) I came out ahead at time control and was able to duly convert it without any issues. This put me on 6/7 and with my two byes in rounds 8 and 9, I figure I should get a tie of first, but who knows. I will definitely add more about the World Open from Spain when I get the chance.

On a complete sidenote, before the round yesterday, I heard the very sad news that former Titans quarterback Steve McNair was shot and killed. As some of you know, since early in 2000, I have been a diehard Titans fan, and I have always been a huge fan of McNair’s style of play. In many ways, I feel that my style of chess fits with the way he played football in that he always tried to play through injuries and kept fighting on. This style of toughness is something I have always strived for and I felt that the game last night fit very much in that style as I refused to give up and kept fighting against Najer. Therefore, in honor of McNair, I will certainly be wearing my McNair Titans jersey in San Sebastian.