[imagefield_assist|fid=6734|preset=frontpage_200x200|lightbox=true|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=200|height=200]Spencer and I went to Indianapolis last weekend for the aptly named Indianapolis Open. This was a CCA event, and CCA has not held an event in Indy in 35 years! Prizes were based on 220 players, and it looked like they would be lucky to get 150, as advance entries were slim. However, there were enough on-site entries to pay the prizes in full! This tournament had several sections (Open, U2100, U1900, U1700, U1500, and U1300) and there were some MO players in each section.
The most successful was Jialin Ding, who scored 4-1 in the U2100 section, and tied for first place! Spencer played in the Open, and beat his first FM, Andrew Karklins, in round 1. Thirteen year old Kevin Cao had an excellent tournament, scoring 3-2, to attain his highest rating ever, about 2200 USCF.
I played well, and was able to tie for first was fellow GMs Gregory Kaidanov, Dmitry Gurevich, and Nikola Mitkov, as we all scored 4-1. One GM, Sergey Kudrin, was not so lucky, and had three draws, scoring 3.5-1.5, just missing the money. None of the five GMs in the field lost a game, but each drew at least twice!
My tournament was somewhat interesting, as I decided to play 1.e4, AGAIN! I played 1.e4 in round 1, got a quite tricky opening and middle-game, and, fortunately, my opponent got way behind in the clock and played some inaccurate moves, finally blundering at the end. Usually I reserve 2.h4!?!? for bullet games.
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Round 2 saw another interesting game, as I was black in a c3 Sicilian, and played a line where black sacrifices his queen! I had good compensation, and, after inaccurate play by my opponent in the middle-game, soon found myself with a lot of passed pawns and an easy victory.
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That game was quite exhausting, so, in round 3, I played a perfunctory draw with GM Mitkov. Mitkov and I have played about 10 times, all games ending in draws, some in more than five hours!
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I had a VERY difficult pairing in round 4, black against GM Kaidanov. I suspected Saturday night I would play him, so, I prepared for 2-3 hours from 11PM-2AM! I got a King's Indian position I had looked at, but Gregory played an early d5, which I had not looked at at all (previously he had tried Be3). We both spent a lot of time, and, little did we know, the whole game (22 moves) had been played before! I offered a draw, and afterward, when analyzing the game with Rybka, the engine confirmed the evaluation, as 0.00!
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I was now trailing Kaidanov, Gurevich, and Mitkov by half a point, but the last round pairings saw Mitkov-Kaidanov and Gurevich-Kudrin. As both boards drew quickly, I had an opportunity to tie for first if I could beat FM Dennis Monokroussos. I have known Dennis for over 20 years, but we have never played a rated game. I decided, once again, to trot out 1.e4! I got nothing out of the opening, but Dennis misplayed the ending, and I was able to win, as he made mistakes in time trouble.
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The U.S. Chess League started the next day, and our team (Yury Shulman, Ben Finegold, Michael Brooks, and Spencer Finegold) lost to the L.A. Vibe by the slimmest of margins, 2.5-1.5. Next week, we will have Hikaru Nakamura back from his travels in Europe, and with three GMs on boards 1-3, we should have excellent chances to beat the Chicago Blaze. Hopefully, I will have good news about that match in my next blog.
