French League Part II (Round IV) Wrapup

April 14, 2008 • General

So, yesterday I played GM Liviu Dieter Nisipeanu with white in the last round of this 2nd leg of the French Top 16 Team Championship. Nisipeanu first became famous way back in 1999 when he had a magical run in the Fide World Cup at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas by beating GMs Ivanchuk and Shirov along the way before losing in the semi finals. Since then, he has consistently performed at a very high level and is considering an extremely solid player. Surprisingly despite having played in several of the same tournaments, this was the first time I ever played him. The game was rather short by my standards as it was a 14 move draw in a Nimzo Indian. Playing morning rounds is always difficult and I was quite tired and played a very dull line which led to a very drawish position.

Unfortunately, while I put up another solid performance scoring 3/4 my team suffered. We only scored 1 win out of our 4 matches with 3 losses. Nevetheless, despite these two rather disappointing performances the players on my team seem to have a lot of enthusiasm and are fun to be around. Hopefully we can turn it around in the third and final leg of the tournament but if not, it will still have been a new experience and a lot of fun.

Quick update, my rating is unofficially 2696 right now. However, it also depends on whether the US Amateur Team gets rated in which case I would be picking up at least two points and whether the tournament I played in Karabakh, Armenia in 2005 gets rated. If these two tournaments ever end up getting rated I would be 2703. However, right now all I am doing is playing the best chess I can and we’ll see what happens. As I have stated on ICC as well as some other places, my goal is to be 2730 by the end of the year. Whether this is possible or not remains to be seen, but I will keep on trying to improve.

Also, as some of you may have noticed my website went down yesterday. I am not sure yet what the reason was, but it appeared to be a technical glitch as opposed to any malicious hacking. Just letting everyone know so that people don’t freak out! Hopefully this won’t happen again, but there is no guarantee.

Shortly, I will be adding a new function where I will include a subscription based area in which I will annotate 1 game a week in which I will pick top games whether they be my own of from elite tournaments. This will probably be setup sometime within the next couple of weeks so keep your eyes open! Amongst other updates, I will be doing a simul at the Washington State Elementary Championships on April 26, 2008. Outside of this there is not much to report other than my continued preparations towards becoming a top 10 player. As of right now, I do not have any tournaments planned during the months of July,August, or September, so perhaps I will get an invitation to a top tournament like Biel. As far as my personal life, these next couple weeks will be very busy as I will be traveling as well as celebrating my brothers graduation. Therefore, it is unlikely that I will be posting very much in the near future. My next major tournament that I have planned right now is the Chicago Open towards the end of May, if anyone is going to be there feel free to say hello! Till next time, Chao!