August 02, 2009 • General
Alright, this blog is definitely a few days later than I would have originally liked, but due to my incredibly erratic sleep schedule and brutally long days of chess, it somehow slipped my mind. Since the tournaments are now over, I will recap the Mainz Chess Classic in the separate segments since I have much to say about both events which I participated in. I hope everyone enjoys the blog!
Day 1: “Arrival”
Coming off so many trips in a row, it was nice to arrive in Mainz a full two days before playing in the 960 Rapid World Championship. There really is nothing much to recap except that I arrived at the Frankfurt International Airport at around 9 AM after one of the more annoying flights in recent memory. Getting from Frankfurt to Mainz is quite convenient as it only requires a short 45 minute train ride during which one gets a great view of the countryside. After checking in at the Hilton Mainz on the Rhine, I decided to completely crash as I was tired from jetlag and all the recent traveling I have done with no break in between. In retrospect that very well might have been a mistake as I never completely was able to get on the time zone.
Day 2: “I love Sleeping”
Keeping in tune with my schedule from the previous day, I spent much of the evening and early morning awake before falling soundly asleep at around 7 AM. I had looked at the schedule the previous night and thought the press conference was at 3 PM. It was not a particularly enjoyable moment when I got a call at 1:55 PM saying the press conference would, in fact, be starting in five minutes! Therefore, I very quickly attempted to make my hair look respectable and showed up looking a bit groggy and out of it. However, I was able to answer the one important question which was asked and, so I accomplished my mission of not looking like a total fool! After this, I promptly went back to my room and feel back to asleep as quickly as I could.
Day 3: “So it Begins”
Luckily for me, keeping a US time schedule seemed to be ok as the games started at 6:30 PM local time which was pretty good since I woke up around 5 PM. As far as the games themselves went, it was anything but good. In the first round I was White against GM Levon Aronian from Armenia. I was really unsure what to expect as the last time I played a variant of normal chess (s-chess) I played like a complete maniac and ended up in some really wild positions.
The first game of the 960 World Championship seemed to follow this form as well when I decided to sacrifice two rooks for a queen while stopping Levon from being able to castle. However, despite what I felt was ample compensation, Levon played quite well and dodged all of my potential tricks. This led to an endgame in which he had a rook and two knights for my queen. Unfortunately, my kingside pawns never really got going and I lost in a fairly routine manner. In the second round, I had my second consecutive White against GM Sergei Movsesian of Slovakia who I played a few weeks back in San Sebastian. This game, at the very least, got off to a much better start as I had an advantage pretty much from the get go. In fact, it turned into pretty much a decisive advantage.
Nakamura-Movsesian, Position after 12…dxc6.
Here, I chose to play 13.Nxe5? Instead of 13.Bxc5 Bxc5 14.Nxe5 Bd6 15.Nxc6 Kb7 16.a4! a5 17.e5 after which I am up a clear pawn and should simply win. Unfortunately for me, after 13…Nxe4! the best I probably had was a draw. Nevertheless, from a psychological standpoint it is very hard to “give up” on the idea of playing for a win after you’ve let it slip. After my mistakes, Movsesian played extremely accurately and I never really had a chance to get back in the game. It goes without saying that being on 0/2 after all my recent successes was a bit of a shock. However, I was not expecting to win the event and simply wanted to just qualify for the final if possible. At this point, my prospects looked quite bleak, but I was able to rebound nicely with a solid win as Black against Moldovan GM Viorel Bologan. Due to a bit of luck, Levon was able to beat Sergei in a very sharp game of counterattacks which left me in the unique position of being tied for second. I recently had a similar situation last December in Norway when Carlsen>Svidler>Nakamura<Carlsen. The same situation happened here with Bologan>Movsesian>Nakamura>Bologan.
I have to admit that all in all, it was definitely a positive development for me to be in this situation considering how mediocre my overall play was on the first day. For me, I think the first game with Levon, I can chalk up with being too optimistic and simply trying to avoid a return to a normal chess position. In the second game against Sergei, I got a dream position out of the opening but messed it up which was incredibly unfortunate. However, the fact that I completely overlooked 13…Nxe4! was absolutely unacceptable and the outcome is completely fair. In the third game, I simply buckled down immensely since it was a must win game and I performed a lot better. I have to say that of the three of us, I felt that I had the most positive ending to day 1. Viorel had lost two games in a row and Sergei got punished by Levon. Going into day 2, my goal was to try and beat Sergei and Viorel, thereby controlling my destiny and most likely guaranteeing myself a spot in the final.
Day 4: “Where Did That Come From??”
Much to my chagrin, the pairings from the previous day repeated themselves except with colors reversed. This meant that in the fourth game, I got Black against Aronian. Going into this game, I knew I desperately needed to put a score on the board or it would make my task much, much tougher as I’d have two must win games. Unlike the previous day when I played based on intuition more than calculation in the opening, I changed my strategy. Instead of trusting my instincts, I figured that I had to get out of the opening with a decent position or else, my odds of even scoring against Levon would go down dramatically. As it turned out, this decision of being much more careful and precise paid dividends right away as I came out of the opening with a more or less completely equal position.
Aronian-Nakamura, Position after 14…Rxa7
At this point, Levon made a huge blunder with 15.Ba2 after which I am simply up a pawn with 15…Nxb2 16.Kc1 Bxa2 17.Kxb2 Bf7! The rest of the game was simply a matter of technique and I was able to covert without getting into any bad time pressure. What can I say? WOW. Of course, somewhere in the back of my head I knew that it was possible to beat Levon, but I definitely did not go into this game with the mindset. This result was a huge boost to my confidence as it made my job a little bit easier since the other two guys still had to face Levon. In the fifth game, I got Black against Sergei again and we resumed our general pattern of someone obtaining a huge edge out of the opening. In this case, it was Sergei who got the big edge as I misjudged the opening considerably and was significantly worse. I decided to sac a pawn to try and liven up the position, but it did not work out particularly well and I had a lot of work to do just reaching a satisfactory position. Luckily for me, Sergei returned the favor from the previous day and misplayed the middlegame giving me near equality. Slowly, I started building up my advantage and outplayed him. At this point, as he was getting worried, Sergei panicked and sacrificed a piece thinking he had a perpetual check. Although I did not play it completely accurately, Sergei missed the one drawing variation and I duly converted the position up one and then eventually two pieces. With this result my score was 3/5 and with Levon’s absolutely shocking loss to Viorel, everything became wide open. Going into the final round there was a really comical possibility of a four way tie if Levon lost to Sergei and I lost to Viorel since everyone would then end up on 3/6! However, both Levon and I clearly wanted to avoid any such drama and we both came out of our respective openings with a big advantage. Without any real difficulty, we both converted our advantages into wins which set up a dramatic final the following day between Levon and I for the 960 World Rapid Championship.
Either later tonight or tomorrow (It is now approaching midnight) I will add the second and final installment recapping the final day of the 960 World Rapid Championship and my epic showdown with Levon followed by the wild Ordix Open which I will have quite a bit to talk about.
July 30, 2009 • General
Greetings to everyone out there in cyberspace once again! Although I wish I could write a long blog right now, I am pretty tired and it is 2 AM, so I’ll just sum it up that I beat Levon Aronian 3.5-.5 today in the finals of the 960 World Chess Chess Championship here in Mainz, Germany. I’ll add a complete blog recapping the first three days of action and add some pictures along with it.
July 24, 2009 • General
Hello everyone! It just somehow has worked out that I have a few hours of downtime today before I go take care of business in New York City, so I will attempt to recap the past week.
Vancouver: “The Return”
In my last blog, I really wore out my fingers with the blog I wrote as I had to race against the clock and I promptly passed out immediately once I boarded the flight due to massive sleep deprivation. I did wake up a few hours later and had the luxury of sitting next to a couple of cute girls from New Jersey who were headed up to Whistler for some hiking. Immediately, I started giving them many ideas of what to do out there which really reminded me of all the great memories I had from last summer. Once I arrived in Vancouver, I promptly went out and enjoyed the afternoon with my friend Bruce out in the burbs. It involved many games of Seirawan Chess which was highly enjoyable for both of us.
These are the two pieces which can come onto the board much like in crazyhouse, but with different move abilities. The hawk can move like a knight&bishop while the elephant can move like a rook&knight. I find this game to be a fun distraction when I am not playing serious chess as there is a lot of creativity to it. Hopefully in time, it will become popular, but for the meantime it remains a game which is only played in Washington&Vancouver primarily.
After all this fun, I headed downtown to stay at my friend Jack’s place in the West End. When I was living in Vancouver last year, I lived in Yaletown which was on the other end of downtown. Sorry if the image below is not perfect, but it is the best I can do to illustrate. Nevertheless, after having been gone for seven months, it was really nice to be situated right next to Stanley Park which I have explored on many, many different occasions. However, I must admit that after leaving Vancouver on such a sour note at the end of last year, I really enjoyed being back now that I am at peace and happy compared to where I was at the time. On Sunday, I chose to explore the North Shore and Granville Island which were both a lot of fun. The perfect sunny days of summer in the Pacific Northwest cannot be beaten anywhere else in the world.
Having spent both Saturday and Sunday in Vancouver, I caught the ferry from Tsawwassen Terminal. The ferries here serve as to the Gulf Islands and Victoria. Surprisingly, I never had a chance to get out to Victoria last summer, and I was out of town when several of my friends took a trip out to Salt Spring Island. Nevertheless, as an experience Vancouverite in many ways, I would recommend that anyone who comes to British Columbia MUST take the ferry to Victoria or the Gulf Islands at some point. The views of the mountains and islands are spectacular and must be seen during the summer (See pictures at the bottom).
Once I arrived at Schwartz Bay Ferry Terminal in Victoria, I was greeted by Canadian Youth Chess Championship organizer, Brian Raymer. After my arrival, we then went to the Victoria International Airport where we were joined by GM Mark Bluvshtein who was fresh off of his win in the Canadian Open. Mark and I first played way back at the World Youth Chess Championship in Oropesa, Spain in 2001. I won that encounter and we didn’t really speak much after that. But during the Montreal International and Dresden Olympiad, I had the opportunity to hang around Pascal,Mark and Igor a lot, so we all became friends. One thing which I have found about the Canadian chessplayers in general is that many of them have a much more laid back attitude than most of the current top American players.
Victoria: “Heavendom on Earth”
Right after Mark and I arrived in downtown Victoria, we had about one hour before our live exhibition. I checked into the Grand Pacific Hotel (Pictures from my room will be at the bottom) and immediately rushed out to get some quick lunch. I took a nice stroll down Government Street which is the main street with tourist shops and restaurants. Considering what I had heard from one of my friends who lives there about it being boring, I was pleasantly surprised. After eating a quick ham and cheese panini, I headed to the Royal British Columbia Museum for the live exhibition with Mark. For the game itself, we used actual people as pieces to make it a public event in which all the kids could participate as well. However, due to the side view which Mark and I had of the board; for us, it became a blindfold game as we could not really assess the position with all these pieces obstructing our view. As far as the game itself is concerned, Mark got White and I played the Two Knights Tango. Mark made a rather serious error pretty quickly and was losing before long. However, I tried to get cute and simplify it into a winning king and pawn endgame for the audience only to realize to my horror that instead of being up a pawn in the endgame, I had sacked my h7 pawn for the initiative earlier! This led to a king and pawn endgame which was drawn. Despite the heat and sun tan which I got during the game, it was a positive experience for everyone and local media covered the event.
Having finished the live exhibition, I returned to the hotel and comfort of my room so I could cool off before my simul which was scheduled to begin an hour later. Surprisingly, I did not follow my own advice and I instead went out and bought some souvenirs from local shops on Government Street! This left me a bit rushed and I ran back to my hotel and dropped off the gifts before I started my simul. I assumed the simul would be much like others I have played in, but of the 40 players who I faced, very few were simply blown off the board in 15 moves like I was expecting. In fact, in most of the games, it took me 20 moves before people started cracking. By the end of the simul, I had won 37 games, drawn 2 and lost 1. Congrats to the three people who scored points off of me! I can assure you that it won’t happen in a real game, at least not for the next 8 years since they won’t be GMs before then! In the evening, Mark and I went out to a nice Irish Pub/Restaurant where I had a delicious Halibut burger and spent a lot of time reminiscing about the past while drinking pitchers of beer! Overall, it was a great day despite being rather long and hectic for me.
On the second day, Mark and I were present for the official opening ceremony of the Canadian Youth Chess Championship. At the start we both said a few words, although neither of us were particularly brilliant with our choice of words, the general message went over well and off the tournament went! Having completed my obligations for the tournament, I went out and explored the waterfront and contemplated kayaking in the harbour but deciding against it due to the heat of the day. I also walked through more of downtown Victoria including Antique Row, Bastion Square and other notable landmarks. I returned to the Grand Pacific in the early evening to drop in and see how the actual games were going. It was at this point, that I was approached by FM Eric Hansen about playing some time odds blitz. For those who aren’t aware, Eric already has a 2400 Fide rating and two IM norms. Surprisingly, he also hails from Calgary, AB, Canada which is rather surprising considering the general lack of strong talents on the west coast of Canada. Nevertheless, we played 18 games at 3-1 time odds with me winning 11-7. Unfortunately, I seem to have hit a certain point where I can still win, but nowhere near as much as I once could. I strongly suspect this has a lot to do with my very serious approach and attitude towards classical chess these days. After this, Mark,Eric and I went out to a Ric’s Seafood Grill where we enjoyed a few drinks while talking about all the bizarre and wild events which we have seen recently at the various tournaments.
The following morning, I left the hotel quite early and caught the 8:45 AM ferry back to Vancouver as it takes approximately 90 minutes on the ferry and 60 minutes to get from Tsawwassen to downtown Vancouver. By leaving when I did, this also gave me an opportunity to enjoy the HSBC Celebration of Lights which opened that evening with Team Canada fireworks. In the early afternoon, my good friend Jack got off of work and we went out and had a few drinks out on the patio’s while watching English Bay become progressively more and more crowded as the afternoon turned into the evening. It is hard for me to come up with a comparison, but the atmosphere becomes crazier and crazier as 100,000 people come from the suburbs of Vancouver and simply invade all the surrounding beaches (English Bay, Kits Beach, Jericho Beach). For those who are interested in actual video of the fireworks, I have uploaded them to my facebook page. Jack and I went off and ate some excellent sushi at this quaint Japanese restaurant called Yoshi’s on Denman Street near Stanley Park about an hour before the fireworks were supposed to begin (they start at sundown). Finally with all the streets closed off and everyone swarming, the fireworks from Team Canada kicked off the show and it was exciting and enjoyable. Having said that, I would still not compare it to the July 4 celebrations as these firework shows have specific themes and don’t last as long. Once the show ended, it was amusing seeing thousands of people walking the other direction. Thus ended the spectacle which always becomes funnier every year.
On Thursday morning, I finally packed my bags and got ready to leave but not before heading off to my favorite Chapters spot on Robson&Howe for some Starbucks with Jack,Bruce and Michelle. Sadly, it all ended too quickly, but as I am moving to Seattle in September, I will be back to see everyone in the near future! So ends another chapter in my summer, but if every tournament/vacation is this much fun, I am going to want to always be traveling (let’s hope I don’t lose my mind like Ivanchuk) and enjoying life. On that note, I hope everyone enjoyed this posting and I will add a couple more once I am in Mainz for the Chess Tigers Festival which I played in last year having much success. That’s all for now, folks!
P.S. Enjoy the following pictures below!
Some clown trying to look cool with sunglasses and a New Yorker magazine sticking out of his bag!
A spectacular view of the water and mountains!
A view of the Queen of New Westminster. Enough cannot be said about BC Ferries and the great services they provide for British Columbia residents.
I am not sure why, but I just like this view looking back in the opposite direction.
A view of the harbour and downtown Victoria from my room at the Grand Pacific Hotel!
A view of the parliament buildings.
The famous Empress hotel in downtown Victoria.
A view of the Royal British Columbia Museum where Mark and I did our live exhibition.
One last view of the parliament buildings at night time and what a view it is!
July 24, 2009 • General
Greetings to everyone once again. I really wish I had time to write a comprehensive blog about this past week in Victoria and Vancouver, but my schedule is incredibly tight so I will write one up on Sunday once I am in Mainz Germany and have a free day to completely rest up and relax.
Cheers,
Hikaru
July 18, 2009 • General
A very good early morning to everyone from Newark Airport! Luckily, there is wifi here courtesy of Boingo Hotspots, so I will attempt to write this blog up before my flight to Vancouver which is scheduled to board 80 minutes from now (when I start the blog)! Before I dive into all the chess related stuff, I happened to catch the early morning news that the famed journalist, Walter Cronkite died either last night or this morning. It seems that far too many prominent people have passed away over the past few weeks, and I think one can only hope that we remember all the positives these inspirational people left behind and try to improve ourselves and the world. On that note, I cannot resist any further and shall now proceed to talk about the adventures which Spain has had to offer…enjoy!
Round 7: “A Close Shave”
Normally speaking, I would never have chosen this title for a specific game, but since it is 5:30 AM and I do not think my brain is functioning anywhere near 100% at this insane hour, it makes sense in a weird way. For those who don’t quite understand the title, it has nothing to do with shaving at all, but rather the Wallace and Gromit cartoon from 1995 which I remember watching on VHS as a Christmas present all those many years ago when I was still young! In round seven, I had Black against Peruvian GM Julio Granda Zuniga. Unfortunately, due to being on the chess only for the later half of the 90s and 00s, I missed much of his rise during the late 80s and early 90s. However, I was well aware of his return to chess in 2001 or 2002 (I think but am not totally sure) and we actually played in the Continental Championships in Argentina in 2003. In that game, I was also Black as well, but I managed to outplay him a Slav and emerged victorious which would eventually propel me into qualifying for the 2004 Fide World Cup in Libya. Since receiving much press after his return, it seems as though Granda has faded back into obscurity as a farmer or simply part time player. Nevertheless, he seems to be a happy fellow, so it is hard to criticize anyone for such a lifestyle. As is, despite not being a serious professional player, he is still capable of being dangerous and beating anyone on a good day. In many ways, he also reminds me of myself as his openings generally seem to be very unpredictable and both players are out of their opening books well before move 10 (I do not think this description fits me anymore though).
In the game Julio opened with 1.d4 and I was the first one to come up with a surprise when I chose to play the Dutch. Over the past few years, I have occasionally played the Dutch with relatively good results including a very important win against Anatoly Karpov in the Cap D’Agde rapid qualifier. On the flip side, I have also played some highly forgettable games including an abysmal loss against soon to be GM Amon Simutowe from Zambia (congrats to him on finally achieving the title). After 2.g3 Nf6 3.Bg2 g6 4.Nf3 Bg7 he chose 5.b4!? To return the favor with another surprise of his own.
Fortunately, I was ready for this and I chose 5…Nc6. Here he played 6.b5 Na5 and now 7.Qd3!??! finally took me out of my preparation. Nevertheless, I felt that my next few moves were more than ok. 7…Ne4 8.c4 c5! 9.Bb2.
Here after using a couple of minutes, I played 9…b6. In many ways, Julio’s deep think of 45 minutes here hurt me greatly from a psychological point of view as it gave me time to ponder why I did not stick with my original idea of 9…a6! Had I chosen this move, I would have had an advantage with potentially a lot more. After this minor blunder, I simply could never shake the missed opportunity from my head for the rest of the game. This is probably what led to my frustration and simple oversight. 15…a6?? It is ratheer ironic that I got this move in, but instead of giving a huge edge like it would have on move 9, it simply lost in this case! After this horrible disaster, Granda found a nice way to force massive trades leading to a winning rook and pawn endgame. However, instead of simply bringing his king into the game, he went for the endgame with an extra pawn. Although this ending was probably winning, it requires a lot of technique and I have yet to find a clear cut forced win despite my original thought that it was very easy and straight forward. In the end, due to the time control, I was able to hold on to the draw like a “bulldog hanging on to a bone,” as a fellow GM commented to afterwards on gmail chat. Although this was definitely not how I would have liked the game to have gone, I got the job done and avoided losing. This was extremely important as GM Ruslan Ponomariov who was one point back at the time crushed GM Vachier-Lagrave in a Grunfeld. With the draw, I still maintained a half point lead heading into round eight.
Round 8: “Recharging The Batteries”
In the 8th round I had White against GM Sergei Movsesian, the Armenian GM who currently plays for Slovakia. Surprisingly enough, I am pretty sure we had never played prior to this game despite being teammates in the Austrian League and playing in the same tournaments on several occasions. I am not sure why this started happening, but towards the end of the tournament, I seemed to feel a little bit gassed. I do not think this had anything to do with my physical or mental preparation, but I feel that it probably was simply the massive amount of energy I expend when I play for wins in every game. Therefore, having gotten to +4 at the midway point made it seem more prudent to try and play stuff which was a little bit simpler. That being said, I did not go into this game with the intention of drawing in 17 moves with White. Unfortunately for me, Sergei chose the Philidor Defence for a second time in the tournament (1st was against Svidler) and I was not expecting his nice little sideline with 7…a6.
Surprisingly enough, this move has only been played 13 times, whereas 7…a6 has been played over 1100 times. As I was not familiar with this variation, I reacted quite badly and chose the “normal” 8.Qe2 c6 9.Rd1. Here he played 9…exd4 10.Nxd4 Re8! (For some reason, Boingo won’t let me upload anymore images). After this, I realized that I was already in some trouble and I found a nice, simple plan to completely equalize the position. After 17 moves, with the position being completely equal I offered a draw which Sergei duly accepted. Obviously, I was not very proud of the game but after getting myself into trouble early, it all worked out and I cannot complain with the result. Svidler and Ponomariov also drew relatively quickly which meant that I still kept a half point lead as we headed towards the final round.
Round 9 “Just A Prelude”
In the critical ninth round, I had Black against GM and former Fide World Champion, Rustam Kasimdzhanov. The first time I played Rustam was in the final of the rapids in Corsica back in October of 2007. In the first game with Black in a Meran, we reached an equal position before he made 1 bad blunder and I pounced on it like a Bull. In the second game with White I also achieved a winning position but gave Rustam a draw to clinch the match. The only other time we played was during the French League in 2008 when we drew in yet another Meran. Overall, I have a lot of respect for “Kasim” as he seems just as capable as anyone else of great results. In San Luis, he did not have a great showing, but I remember his crushing win over Anand quite well. Therefore, I did not approach this game with my standard “must win” attitude which I always have when I play in the US swisses. Overall, Kasim is just an extremely solid player who is capable of being great at times.
In the game, we started out in a Queens Indian, but I chose to play the 4…Bb7 variation instead of the more standard 4…Ba6. We then followed theory until move 8 when I chose the interesting and quite unknown sideline with 8…Nd6!? Fortunately, I had already prepared for this for the US Championships when I played Ehlvest. We then played standard moves until Rustam chose 15.e4 ?! This move, although not terrible seems to give away any practical advantages to a human. I know that after looking at this game with “The Fish,” (Peter used this term after our game in third round) I remain unconvinced. After the next few moves, Kasim chose to repeat when I found 19…Qf5! After the game, Rustam mentioned that he had overlooked this move and had only seen 19…Qg7 after which White definitely has an advantage. After the more or less forced repetition, I signed a few autographs and posed for a few pictures before rushing back to the hotel. During the game, I could tell that Ponomariov was better and had pretty good winning chances. So I ran back to the hotel in order to prepare for the looming playoff if he could find a way to beat Vallejo.
Once we got back to the hotel, Kris and I started reviewing much of our preparation both before and during the tournament to see if we had any special lines which could be used in straight blitz. Ultimately, we only had 15-20 minutes, so it became a quick review session and simply hoping that A) our preparation was good and B) that I could remember it! Thus, I hung around the hotel just long enough to see Ponomariov win his game and catch up with me. After this, it was showtime. Having given it my all during the tournament, it is always interesting trying to re-establish the mentality of having to re-focus for another battle when you think it is all but over. Luckily, over the years, I have had many instances where I have caught up (Gibraltar 2007) or been caught (Gjovik 2008). This great level of experience definitely helped me more in Spain then anywhere else, as I truly felt out of it. Ultimately, at the end of the day you simply have to forget about everything and just play. In many ways, Kris’s little bits of advice before the first and second game made me realize this.
Blitz Game 1: “Ready, Set, Go”
After what seemed like an eternity, (it took a good 15-20 minutes to change the setup) we finally got down to business and I had White in the first game. I was definitely expecting a repeat performance of the Najdorf from Ponomariov, but he instead chose the Scheveningen variation the Sicilian. Although this was a surprise it was more than a welcome one! I promptly responded with the Keres Attack which I had prepared for GM Movsesian in the eighth round. After playing a variation with h6,g5, I was slowly able to neutralize all play on the queenside and the disastrous kingside cost Ponomariov dearly as he simply could not stop my threats. In general, this was nearly the perfect opening for me because I have also had experience with these positions as Black, and it made all my moves very natural and required very little thinking. Lately, it seems, when I do not play blitz enough, I start going into stupid thinks for which I got punished by Svidler when we played blitz in Gjovik, Norway last winter. This time around though, I just avoided any deep thinks and it all worked out in the first game.
Blitz Game 2: “Finally, Finally I Can Relax!”
For some reason after the first blitz game, the arbiters chose to give up a 15 minute break. Ideally, I think 5-10 minutes is best as it really cuts down on the potential overthinking which can start to occur otherwise. I suppose the only real plus was that it gave Kris and I a chance to reason and reach a solid conclusion on what to play in the second blitz game. Other than this short chat, my time consisted of pacing back and forth in the hall with a nice big scowl on my face. In the end, the minutes slowly passed and we started the second game. After playing the standard Slav, Pono played 12.Bf4 instead of 12.e5 which has been featured in practically every top level game of late. After 12…c5 I got a very comfortable game and never had any real problems in the game. After a repetition, Pono tried one last ditch effort to trick me, but couldn’t stop a simple fork which won the game neatly and the title for me. For some reason, whenever I win a tournament in a blitz playoff, it always takes a bit for the victory to sink in since I have re-adjusted my thought process and really just want to play the next game. I think for this reason, I was still in a bit of shock for the next half hour as I just kept wanting game three of the blitz to start. I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it definitely makes me a blitz addict!
Dinner, Beach, Fun Times
After the closing ceremony at city hall, all of the participants went off to dinner at a local seafood restaurant where we enjoyed the local cider and some very interesting Caribbean music. As of now, I have not yet seen many of the dancing pictures show up on Chessbase yet, but it was a fun filled evening for all. Between the food, great conversations (I spoke with Karpov!) and just enjoyable atmosphere, it was definitely a fitting way for such an event to end. Normally this would have been the end of the night, but Kasim and his wife organized for a beach afterparty. Having won the tournament and had some wine, I figured why not! Therefore, a bunch of us (Peter,me,Kris,Kasim,David, Paco,Ines,Tania,Vesna and Anastasia, sorry if I forgot anyone) went down to the beach at 2 AM and off for a nice little swim in the ocean. This was certainly not the brightest idea, but it was all in good fun and everyone enjoyed it. Afterwards, Kris&I decided that since it was 3 AM and we had to be at the airport at 7 AM should completely destroy the minibar which we did with fine efficiency while playing and watching some random games on ICC. On that note, I hope everyone enjoys this blog and I shall check back with everyone once I am in Vancouver later today!
Last but not least, I would just once again like to thank David,Felix and everyone else with the organization who did a great job putting on a world class event and created a perfect atmosphere for a chess tournament. Thank you for a great experience!
