World Open: A New Hope
Submitted by
TimMoroney on Fri, 07/04/2008 at 9:31am.
No holographic message, although possibly a bit of Force involved. Either way there has been a change in the wind here at the World Open. People's patterns and behaviors change with the weather. The clouds have rolled in this morning, leaving us our first day without the energizing sun's rays. I expect to see a change in styles of play amongst the players. It will be an interesting day of competition.
Last night saw my first win of the tournament, against long-time Master Libardo Rueda (2197). He played an interesting Reti-style move order to eventually transpose to a French Defense position which would allow him a favorable King's Indian Attack setup. If that sounds confusing it's because it was. The position itself was just as tricky, and this was by far the most tactically intense game I have played so far in this week. He came out of the opening with a slight edge at move 9, where a quick database scan showed White's performance above 60%, but tables turned very quickly when he missed taking the most active approach to the position and by move 14 the advantage had turned completely in my favor. I held tightly to that advantage through all of the middlegame and endgame trickery happening and he resigned at move 40 when I forced the final breakthrough. This may be a sign of a turnaround in my tournament performance; a new hope.
Pairings for the next round are a bit challenging to predict. There were only 16 people playing the 7-day schedule in my section. However, for tonight's game we will be merging with those who competed in the 5-day and 4-day schedules, bringing an additional 86 people into the mix. As I type these players are all downstairs trying to establish their positions in the standings as we enter into the final 5 rounds of the tournament.
Seth Homa (2234) is holding a very good result now in the Open section. He currently stands at 1/3. Drawing IM Dean Ippolito (2504) in round 1, drawing WGM Nisha Mohota (2500) in round 2, and barely losing to IM Justin Sarkar (2460) after a long and very tactical rook+pawn endgame.