I've seen fire and I've seen rain

In the end, most things even themselves out. Karma has a way of acting like an iron on the freshly pressed dress shirt of life. Bad hair days find themselves sandwiched between days of fantastic coifs. Mathematicians call this "regression towards the mean", which is such a sad way of putting it. To think that we are "regressing" to something known as "average" doesn't leave much room for hope or optimism! This karmic notion applies to the chess world as well, especially my last two rounds. In round 3 I resigned in a Rook-and-Pawn endgame that maybe had some more life left to it. Not that I was in a position to win, but a draw might have been available. Last night, round 4, I found myself in a drawn position late in the game when my opponent erred and I netted a piece, effectively ending the game in my favor. So what probably should have been two draws ends up being a loss and a win. Still the same result, 1 point out of 2, I just took a different road there.

My opponent last night was a young man from New Orleans, here for the week to play in the 107th. I asked him how it was going down there and he responded that things were "getting better, getting better", yet his tone and the slow, calculated way he choose his words made me think I actually have no idea what it's like in the bayou STILL and when you are talking about total destruction as a starting point, "getting better" seems a bit thin in the progress department one year later. His rating was some 500 points below mine which is always cause for concern. Sometimes ratings that low aren't real good indicators of a person true strength. One's rating is relative only to the games they've played and the skill level of their opponents. We can't play everybody (sadly), so the rating system used is only a partially-accurate estimator. Such was the case for my opponent. He was actually much stronger than his D-class rating and proved it over the board with informed play. Afterwards, he offered to go over the game, a 'process' known in the chess world as the "post-mortem". Nearly ALL of the higher rated players do this after EVERY round! Hmm, a connection? Also, this is how you can meet nice people and even though it was late and I was tired, we reviewed the game and found some points of interest I'm anxious to look at more closely. He's going to surprise some people this week.

I purchased the daily bulletins for the 107th, which are absolutely awesome in their quality. Each ones near 50 pages thick with games, diagrams and pics. I've been fortunate to have two of my games published in them so far (rounds 2 and 3), something I attribute more to my penmanship than my play! Some players scribble their moves down in their best Neanderthal cursive. I tend to make mine as neat and clean as possible so I can replay it later on without need for a rosetta stone to crack the code. I'm guessing the person transcribing the games into the bulletin, given the choice between Neanderthal and Helvetica, goes for the path of least resistance! Nonetheless, it's a thrill to see your name in print and would urge any other players to get them as well. They can be a useful weapon, too, since they publish so many games each round, I can scan for the games of my next opponent to gain some insight to what they may play against me. The 107th website has been posting the pairings a few hours ahead of time and had I gotten the bulletins from the start I would have known my round 3 opponent was going to play the Dutch Defense against me! I spotted a game of my round 4 opponent while I was sitting at the board prior to the round starting last night and knew he was going to open with d4! (pushing the Queen's pawn forward two squares)

I'll take a moment here to talk about superstition. Yes, I am superstitious when it comes to chess tournaments! Putting the responsibility of winning or losing on something else besides myself is great fun and I urge you all to give up your power in a similar fashion as a step towards personal growth. All kidding aside, I must write down my moves with the same pen each round. Not that I have a "special" pen, but whatever I use to start, I must use for the whole tourney. Other superstitions manifest themselves as the tourney progresses. For example, In my drives out to Oak Brook, I put my chess set/clock case on the passenger seat next to me. Well, for my round 3 loss, I had just thrown it in the back seat with my laptop while leaving work. Since I lost that round I put the case on the front seat again for yesterday's drive and won again. Guess the case will be up front with me the rest of the week!

A few technical notes: I'm able to post my games on here now, see the links to the right to play through them. Special thanks to my "Uncle-in-Law" Mark Gallagher for providing the hosting space! Most of the analytical variations (in red) are from Shredder10, the verbal notes are mine. These are quick reviews at this point, more in depth analysis will come later. Be warned: These aren't brilliancies. Please feel free to comment if you find a better move somewhere! Speaking of comments, it was brought to my attention that only restigered users of Blogger.com could post comments. I didn't realize I had the power to change that, which I did, and now anyone can post comments. I'm new to this, uh, apparently!

Sightings: I was fairly locked into my game last night and didn't notice much of note last night. The 6-day schedule has started, they played in the back of the hall, so it was weird seeing GM's like Alexander Shabalov playing in the back with the rest of us slugs! I saw a younger player with tears in his eyes during his game. I feel for him, been there done that. I see that as a sign of someone's passion for the game and desire to win, or at least play as well as they can. To wear his emotions out there like that, I applaud it. A player a few boards away from me unleashed a sneeze of Cornwallian magnitude that nearly caused an arterial infarction in another nearby player. Fun stuff!