[chessmind] Dennis Monokroussos: Ongoing Events: US Championship, 11th North American FIDE Invitational

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Posted by Dennis Monokroussos:
Ongoing Events: US Championship, 11th North American FIDE Invitational
http://chessmind.powerblogs.com/posts/1211166040.shtml


   In the US Champs, almost every game was drawn. Two games were
   decisive, but one of the two was the first board clash between Shulman
   and Kudrin, won by the former. He now stands alone in first place with
   5/7; Kudrin, Becerra and Onischuk are a point back with 4/7.
   Last but not least, I pulled things together a bit today. In round 3,
   I drew with Tate. In fact, I was winning at one point, but a strange
   hallucination reduced most of my advantage. Later on I managed to miss
   a tactic, but I think that by then the only effect was to go from the
   nominally better half of the draw to the nominally worse half. In
   round 4, I pulled out a win on the white side of an Anti-Marshall. I
   probably didn't get anything from the opening, but after a little
   while we reached a position where I was essentially playing to exploit
   his bad pieces - the knight and the bishop. I'm not sure how accurate
   I was, but it was nice - and ironic, too, in light of the previous
   sentence - that I concluded the game by sacrificing my own knight and
   bishop to promote.
   From here on out, it's just one round a day, and since the band's not
   playing my chances for a good night's sleep are looking up.