Postcard from Reykjavik

Adarsh Jayakumar is currently playing in Iceland at the Reykjavik Open, where he just landed a Very Big Fish.  Today's victim, the Bosnian-Dutch GM Ivan Sokolov, won the Yugoslav Championship once and the Dutch Championship twice, and is the reigning World Open champion!

Field report: TJWO rounds 1 & 2

My very solid opponent came closer to winning than I did.  He withdrew from the Open after this round and entered the Booster Section, finishing second.

Now to Round 2.  After my blunder on move 24, I took Lady Gaga's advice and maintained my poker face. Then I lashed out emotionally on move 34 (the will to win is healthy, but maybe I'm crazy, just like Cee Lo).  Steven Napoli sees through the cheap shots and neutralizes the "attack" quickly.  He's much stronger now than he was a few years ago!

Chicago Class vanity

I got outplayed by both of my opponents last Sunday. Psychologically, draws are not the most satisfying result, but drawing two games beats losing two games.  And in both games, both players were trying to win...

Try to predict White's move in the position below!

At the ICA Banquet the previous day, I had the honor of presenting the 2012 Broughton Award to Jim Brotsos. While Jim and I were bantering about his lifetime of service to Illinois chess, I had my iPhone in my hand, as I was about to read some email testimonials that Jim's friends had sent. Somehow, I managed to start playing a Peter Drucker audiobook in the middle of Jim's remarks.

Not having sufficiently learned my lesson, I forgot to turn my iPhone off before round 4. In the middlegame, I somehow triggered the iPhone in my pocket, and "Five Years" (the opening track of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars) began playing for the "benefit" of the players. For "Five Years," I was penalized ten minutes (which seems more than fair: I could have been forfeited).  My apologies to all!

Don't be an inconsiderate dope like me: turn off your cell phone before play begins. (I realize that family and work concerns make it mandatory for some players to be in touch at all times: put your phone on vibrate, and let the TD know what you're doing.)

Vanity Catalan (or, "Kids, don't do this at home")

Granted, I missed stronger continuations, and my opponent was fully equal after the Exchange sac. But if Petrosian had been a coffeehouse player, he'd have approved.

Blaze 2½ - San Francisco Mechanics 1½

The Chicago Blaze are now 7-0!

On Board 2, Grandmasters Jesse Kraai and Mesgen Amanov played a sharp Catalan that fizzled out into a draw:

Blaze 2½ - Baltimore Kingfishers 1½

Speaking very very selfishly, I'm glad that if Dmitry Gurevich had to lose, he lost in a variation that has been giving me trouble with the White pieces. IM Tegshsuren Enkhbat is not tempted by the long diagonal, but simply plays to recover the gambit pawn.

Board 3: Adelberg - Amanov 0-1

Mesgen Amanov treats the Catalan as if it were a Botvinnik Semi-Slav. It's OK to be down a ton of material if you've got a phalanx of queenside pawns and a monster knight on d3.

Brilliant win by Dmitry Gurevich

If you play either side of the Catalan, you should pay attention to this game!  The main line of the Open Catalan begins with 7.Qc2.  Black's reply 7...b5!? has been played before, but it's been considered an unimportant sideline.  In almost every previous game, Black met 8.a4 with 8...c6, with less-than-satisfactory results.

As Eric Rosen explained to me a couple weeks ago, Alexander Shabalov revived 7...b5!? against Sam Shankland in this year's U.S. Championship.  Shabalov's primary contribution seems to be the realization that after 8.a4, the critical move is 8...b4!

Dmitry is Eric's teacher, so I suspect the two of them have been working on this line together.  The engines tell me that in yesterday's game against six-time Dutch champion Loek Van Wely, Gurevich was better after 14 moves and simply winning after 16...Bf6!  Dmitry finished the game in style with a bishop sac and a rook sac. Impressive preparation and play against a super GM!