Entering into the 110th U.S. Open, I have had a difficult time setting any particular performance goal for the event. I am taking part in an historical open competition, the largest held in the U.S. each year, on the USCF's 70th anniversary. Surely there must be some equally historic milestone I could aim to achieve in the process! Sadly, I have not stumbled across any such goal yet in my mind, but we still have 8 days of tournament left to be played, and I continue to hope the inspiration will strike me in the many insightful hours to come.

This is quite a new experience from any tournament I have played in to date. I arrive here in Indianapolis as the new editor of Michigan Chess Magazine, the official publication of the MCA (Michigan Chess Association, www.michess.org); Chairman of the elections committee for the Chess Journalists of America(www.chessjournalism.org); And member of the publications committee for the USCF (www.uschess.org). This means I will be attending workshops and meetings all through the second half of the event, playing photographer for the MCA (if anyone happens to read this and catches some Michigan players on camera, feel free to forward them along to me at MiChessMag (at) gmail (dot) com.), and doing tournament reporting for the magazine. It makes for quite an action-packed event.

Onto my first round game:

With the upcoming September/October issue of Michigan Chess coming up soon, and being a memorial issue to recently passed Michigan chess legend, V. E. Vandenburg, I have been pondering the idea of a living memorial to him in this event. Basically, this equates to the thought of taking on his life-long favorite opening line, 1.b4! Known by many names, such as "The Polish," "The Orangutan," "The Sokolsky," and, back home in Michigan, "The Vandenburg."

Well, I had the misfortune of playing my first round game with the Black pieces, and so I would have to wait until later in the event to pull out "The Vandenburg." However, as the opening ceremonies concluded for the event, and my opponent reached out for his first move I was met with a shock to the system -- I had been beaten to the punch!