2013 Cardinal Open

Well it happened as I knew it would, I got busy and neglected my chess blog, but I certainly didn't stop playing! Since my last post (way back in August of '12) I've been to a few nights of quick rated meetings and am part of the OSU chess club team that's playing in league in Columbus. Just this weekend I played in my first multi-day tournament in a looong time (the last being the 79th MA Open in 2010!). I had a great tournament going 4/5 with no losses! I had some real winning chances in both of my draws but in both cases I misevaluated at a critical point and played a safer looking but ultimately worse line. Including in one case right in the endgame! But gaining almost 50 rating points, breaking 1700 with a 1900+ performance rating I was more than happy :) Below are two games from the tournament, first my last round game where with a little help from my opponent I had mate on move 22! and second my draw where the better move looks crazy and then I missed an endgame win and we drew a few moves later. There aren't many big tournament in my area until around April but then there's a few over the summer, hopefully this tournament was the start of a great run :)

I ended the tournament clear 3rd in the U1800 :) It's also been a long time since I was at a tournament with GMs and that's always a fun experience too.