2014 Tucson Open
On January 24th thru 26th I attended the Tucson Open Chess tournament put on by the South Arizona Chess Association. I played in the second section U1800 and scored 1 win, 2 draws and 1 loss while playing all four games against higher rated players. This netted me a 46 point jump in my rating. I'm now rated 1578 and am trying to get back above 1600. Here are some pictures of the tournament and below that will be my annotated games.
Game
#1 was against Jim Chaffin. This was a good game where Jim thought he had seen a
combination that would give him an advantage. I was able to come out even and
eventually take advantage of an error on his part to win the game. Click
Here if you want to replay the game.
Game #2 was against an 11 year old from Phoenix named Powell Walker. A very nice young man. I'm a little frustrated that I wasn't able to get a picture of him. At the start of the game I thought I was going to be able to trap him but he sniffed it out. We then seemed to have the same plan for the game. Niether of us could find an advantage so the game ended an uneventful draw. Click Here if you want to replay the game.
Game
#3 was against Scott Knight. He was one of the better players in the tournament
section and the top rated player I played in the tournament. This was a very
exciting game with the advantage shifting several times. After 6 long hours we
agreed to a draw. Click
Here if you want to replay the game.
Game
4 was played on Sunday morning. After the late, hard game 3 on Saturday night I
should have taken a bye in the 4th round and played the 5th Sunday afternoon.
But instead I played on Sunday morning against a nice young man named Dave Mohan
(shown here in the yellow hoodie). I was tired and made sevral mistakes in the
game, to his credit Dave took full advantage of each of them. Click
Here to replay the game.