Land of the Sky (or was it the Snowstorm??!)

My break from chess during football season is over and I made the trek up to the frozen North for the Land of the Sky tournament. This is the biggest tournament I go to each year and it looked like they might get 300 players until Mother Nature dumped a foot of snow on Asheville. The 2.5 hr drive took 7 hours, 4 hrs for the last 15 miles! The last 10 miles or so seemed like a Twilight Zone episode as it was dark, snow covered with abandoned vehicles everywhere and not another occupied car in sight. It actually wasn't that bad though and we were in good spirits when we got to the hotel around midnight. Attendance was down with "only" 161 players but it seemed only the strong ones braved the weather regardless of class and every round was a battle from top to bottom. This tournament and hotel are the best one I go to each year. Here's a picture from the highway when we started to move again and one from the hotel room.































I was paired up in the first round with a 1900 player from GA I'm at 1670 right now. He had white, kept the initiative against my still sloppy Nimzo-Indian and slowly ground me down. I felt I played as well as I could, just got beat by a better player. I'm trying a new game viewer, hopefully it'll work right.

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The second round I was paired down a little with a 1600 kid I've played a couple times before. I actually enjoy playing him because he always gives me a good fight, doesn't have any annoying habits and just plays calmly the whole game. I spent several minutes trying to decide if I wanted to play d4 and play the London that I haven't played in almost a year or e4 and play the Sicilian like we have in the past. I finally decided on 1. e4 and got the expected 1. c5 from him. Then I took several more minutes on whether to play my usual Grand Prix Attack or try the Morra Gambit that I recently looked at briefly. I really don't like the Morra since it seems Black can equalize pretty easily but it looks really fun to play so naturally after suffering a first round loss in my first game in three months and needing a confidence boost I played the Gambit having never played it OTB before. As expected after 2. d4 cxd4 3. c3 he played Nf6 and I went "Crap!", the declined line is the last chapter of the book I got and I haven't got that far yet! So as Fritz would say, now I was on my own. I was able to apply the ideas behind the opening, gave him a cramped position and he finally cracked. After two rounds I was 1-1. Not bad after a 3 month layoff and two games with no time trouble that usually plagues me after I take breaks.

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Round three I was paired up with an 1850 player from NC that I always see at the tournaments but we only played once, in the last round, at this tournament in 2008. That game was a snoozer as we were both tired, hadn't had a good tournament and didn't have much fight left. It wound up an uneventful draw. This game I decided a draw would be fine for me and when it turned into a Bogo-Indian, he made a slight inaccuracy in the opening, let me equalize and it was just a dry game that ended in a draw. One and half points after 3 rounds and being paired up twice, I'm feeling pretty good about Saturday and looking forward to Sunday.

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Round 4 I was paired up with another 1850 but I had never played him. I went with 1. e4 to play for a win and we blasted through the opening in a matter of minutes. It was a Caro-Cann and even though I had never faced it OTB I didn't have any problem getting a nice position out of the opening. Then, whoever had played the first three games and blasted through the opening in this one left and sent some moron in to finish the tournament! I lost focus going into the middle game and couldn't decide on attacking the middle or the queenside and basically did neither and threw away the advantage. Then my problem with pawn play came back he just efficiently dismantled me. I figured the loss would pair me down in the final round so I should be able to bounce back and end on a positive.

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In the final round I was paired down with a 1600 kid from GA who had a bad cold and kept coughing through the whole game. Normally this doesn't bother me since I never get sick but after living with Monk the past several months I had trouble blocking him out. I ahd Black and played the Sicilian as usual but he went into a closed which I rarely see. I was really happy with the position I had out of the opening but again lost focus, my pawns wandered around again giving me a horrible Bishop and I had a completely losing position. I could see ways he could go wrong so I decided to put up maximum defence I could and try for the draw. It worked and I was able to draw despite being two pawns down in a Q+p's endgame. Whew! I finished with 2 points and played at my level. After a three month break I was satisfied with the result but bothered with the loss of focus on Sunday. I also need to improve my pawn play if I expect to get to Class A.

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In the end this turned out to be the most fun I've had at a tournament in the 10 years I've been playing passing the Carolina's Challenge in 2007. I did gain 1, ONE stinking point, so my streak is still intact at seven straight tournaments gaining points. The last time I lost points was at this tournament last year.




Until next week.....